| 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. | J
Darling | SA | 28 | RHB opener
captain | | S E
Gregory | NSW | 29 | RHB | | C
Hill | SA | 22 | LHB | | W P
Howell | NSW | 29 | RFM | | F A
Iredale | NSW | 31 | RHB opener
| | A E
Johns | Vic | 31 | LHB second WK | | E
Jones | SA | 29 | RF | | J J
Kelly | NSW | 32 | WK | | F J
Laver | Vic | 29 | RHB (RM) | | C E McLeod | Vic | 29 | RHB RM | | M A
Noble | NSW | 26 | RHB OB / RM | | H
Trumble | Vic | 32 | OB / RM | | V T
Trumper | NSW | 21 | RHB | | J Worrall | Vic | 36 | RHB opener | | |
|
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 | Major
B J Wardill | Tour
manager | | Baggage
/ scorer |
| | |
| 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 | Sydney | The
Rest | Won
7 w | Melbourne | The
Rest | Won
4 w | Adelaide | The
Rest | Won
9 w | | | | Crystal Palace | South
of England | Drawn | Leyton | Essex | Lost
126 r | Kennington
Oval | Surrey | Won
inns 71 r | Eastbourne | An England XI | Won
172 r | Sheffield | Yorkshire | Drawn | Old
Trafford | Lancashire | Won
inns 84 r | Oxford | Oxford University | Drawn | TRENT BRIDGE | ENGLAND
First Test | DRAWN | Lord's | MCC
& Ground | Won
8 w | Cambridge | Cambridge University | Won
10 w | Bradford | Yorkshire | Drawn | LORD'S | ENGLAND
Second Test | WON 10 w | Portsmouth | Oxford University | Won
10 w | Leicester | Leicestershire | Won
248 r | Derby | Derbyshire | Won
inns 249 r | HEADINGLEY | ENGLAND
Third Test | DRAWN | Trent Bridge | Nottinghamshire
| Drawn | Truro | An England XI | Won
8 w | Edgbaston
| Midland
Counties | Won
44 r | Bristol | Gloucestershire | Won
6 w | OLD TRAFFORD | ENGLAND
Fourth Test | DRAWN | Crystal Palace | WG
Grace's XI | Drawn | Kennington
Oval | Surrey | Lost
104 r | Hove | Sussex | Drawn | Lord's
| MCC
& Ground | Won
9 w | Southampton | Hampshire | Drawn | Edgbaston | Warwickshire | Won
9 w | Canterbury | Kent | Lost
2 w | KENNINGTON OVAL | ENGLAND
Fifth Test | DRAWN | Cheltenham | Gloucestershire
| Drawn | Lord's
| Middlesex | Won
inns 230 r | Taunton | Somerset | Drawn | Aigburth,
Liverpool | Lancashire | Drawn | Scarborough | CI
Thornton's XI | Drawn | Hastings | South
of England | Won
110 r | | | |
| † 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 | | P | W | L | D | Aban | Test Matches | 5 | 1 | 0 | 4 | - | Other first-class matches | 30 | 15 | 3 | 12 | - | ϯ Minor matches in England | 0 | - | - | - | - | ϯ Minor matches in Australia | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | - | All Matches | 38 | 19 | 3 | 16 | - |
| | |
| 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. | | |