Tour of England 1899             Captain: Joe Darling

Ninth Australian Test tour

Ninth Test-playing tour of England by Australia

 (March - October 1899)

The tour was arranged by the Melbourne Club and at its heart were players who wanted the colonial associations to dissociate from the Australian Cricket Council.

The team departed with 13 players but the selectors fortunately corrected their omission of Victor Trumper from the side, having seen him play in three pre-tour matches.  He was asked to assist the manager and paid a half-share but this was later made up into a full share.  He helped to make this the strongest Australian team yet sent to England.

Given conditions much to their liking in a summer of almost tropical weather, the Australians were at their best and won the first five-Test series played in England.

Middlesex and the Australians decided to give half the gate money from the Middlesex fixture as a benefit to Jim Phillips who played for the county for several years and was closely connected with Australian cricket.

The Australians abandoned plans to make a Test tour of South Africa on their way home

All Australian tours

Previous tour

England 1896

Next tour

England 1902

Members of the Test tour party (14)

Opening batsmen : Joe Darling, Jack Worrall, Frank Iredale

Middle-order batsmen:Clem Hill, Syd Gregory, Victor Trumper, Monty Noble, Frank Laver

Wicket-keeper: Jack Kelly, Alf Johns

Slow bowlers:  Hughie Trumble, Charlie McLeod, (Noble)

Fast bowlers: Ernie Jones, Bill Howell.

Average age of  team at time of first Test match

  (1 June 1899) : 

      29 yrs  2 months.

Colonial representation

Sheffield Shield teams

NSW - New South Wales (6)

SA  -  South Australia (3)

Vic   -  Victoria (5)

Key to type:

RHB Right-handed bat

RM  Right arm medium-paced bowler

RFM  Right-arm fast medium

OB   Off break

WK  Wicket-keeper

Test Appearances made before the tour

Gregory 19,  Trumble 14,  Darling 13, Iredale 11,  Jones 9,  Hill 8,  Kelly 8,  Worrall 7,  McLeod 6,  Noble 4,  Howell 3,  Johns 0,  Laver 0,  Trumper 0.

Tour Officials

Selectors

The Melbourne Club appointed Joe Darling,  Syd Gregory  and  Hugh Trumble.

Joe Darling and Syd Gregory were both aged 28, the youngest selectors that Australia has had, equal with Bruce in 1893.

Selection

The Australasian Cricket Council was sidelined and the Melbourne Club made the tour arrangements

Unavailable  Harry Trott’s selection for the 1899 Australian team was thwarted by his illness so the Australian captaincy passed to Joe Darling.

Tour Party Announced    ?

Not selected:  Victor Trumper was not in the original tour party in 1899 but was added to it (as ‘Wardill’s assistant’) when they saw how good he was in the last of the warm-up matches.  His fee was £200 instead of the £700 the existing team were getting, but later in the tour Darling got it raised.

Time between selection and departure from Australia       x days

(? - 22 March)

Travel

Adelaide  T   Tilbury

              ‘Ormuz’

The team played three fixtures styled Representative XI v The Rest at Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne before finally sailing out of Largs Bay on the 'Ormuz' on 22 March. 

The Orient liner sailed via Suez and Venice where Darling, Gregory and Kelly disembarked. (Peter Wynne-Thomas's book says that Noble, Iredale and Laver left at Naples while Johns, Kelly, Gregory, Darling, Hill and Jones left the ship at Marseilles).  They arrived in London and moved into the team's London headquarters, the Inns of Court Hotel, on 26 April.  The 'Ormuz' reached Tilbury with the remainder of the team on the afternoon of 28 April. 

Five days of practice began at Lord's (except for Howell who had a muscle strain) on 1 May.

Time spent in England

    x days

(26 April - 15 September)

On-tour selection panel

Darling, Gregory and Trumble.

Reinforcements

None, although Hill was unable to play in the second part of the tour.  Iredale missed matches in mid-tour with measles, and Worrall missed matches between the 3rd and 4th Test with a leg injury.

Fixtures/Results

† not first-class

Time spent in England before First Test: 

  x days

(26 April - 1 June)

Test appearances on tour

5 -  . Darling,  Gregory,  Howell,  Jones,  Kelly,  Noble,  Trumble,  Trumper

4 -    Laver,  Worrall

3 -    Hill, Iredale

2 - 

1 -    McLeod

0 -    Johns

Highlights

•   Victor Trumper made 0 in his first innings against England but in the next match scored a century at Lord's.

•   Ernie Jones took 7 for 88 at Lord's - he had 26 wickets in the series.

•   Clem Hill's 135 was instrumental in winning the second Test, the only match to produce a result.

•   Noble scored 60 not out and 89 at Old Trafford Test - both fifties being scored on the second day of the match. 

•   Hugh Trumble achieved the 'double' of scoring 1000 runs and taking 100 wickets in an English season.

Tour Summary

Return to Australia

Tilbury  T  Southampton

                ‘Oruba’

There was a farewell dinner on 11 September.  The first batch of players travelled home aboard ss 'Oruba', leaving Tilbury on 15 September, while the others remained in England for three further weeks' holiday.

Time away from Australia  x days  

(22 March - )

Finances

Written accounts of the tour

"The 1899 Australians in England"    Peter Sharpham  (published by J W McKenzie, 1997).

Postscript

A tour of South Africa on the way home was cancelled because the British were fighting the Boer War there and did not take place until 1902.

Australia became a Commonwealth on 1 January 1901 when the six colonies federated.