and had not illness and accident, especially the unfortunate mishap which more or less crippled Morley, their only first-class fast bowler, been unfortunately frequent, an even better record than the respectable results achieved might have been realised. A rubber of three matches was played with the victorious 1882 Australian eleven, and after each had easily won a match, the decisive game ended at Sydney in the victory of England by 69 runs.
Cricket enthusiasm was at a very high pitch in Australia at this time, the first victory of Australia over England having greatly excited the public mind, and the attendance at the test matches exceeded all previous records.
The rubber having now been won by England, a suggestion was made that another match should be arranged, and one or two players included in the Australian side who had not been to England with Murdoch. Evans and Midwinter were accordingly chosen to take the places of Garrett and Macdonnell, and, although it seemed highly doubtful if this change was calculated to be for the better, its advocates would doubtless claim the justification of their choice in the Australian victory which resulted by four wickets. Fifty-five thousand people were supposed to have witnessed the play during the four days that the match occupied, and a new plan was adopted of having a fresh wicket for each of the four innings. This was necessitated by the peculiar nature of the Sydney turf, a thick-bladed, flat-growing grass, which looked perfectly smooth, but wore very badly.
