by Charles Davis
The match between Lord Harris’
England team and Bill Murdoch’s second Australian XI at the Oval in 1880 was
the first Test match where the cricketing strengths of the two nations were
close to representative. Among the major players of the day, only Spofforth was
absent (through injury). The match was and is justifiably famous, and contained
some remarkable performances in addition to its historical significance.
The match has been the subject of some
excellent descriptive reports, notably in Cricket Lore, Vol 1, No. 3,
p8ff (March 1992, Richard Hill, ed.).
Published scores of the Test, however, are limited in detail, and conform to
the practices of the day. A modern-style scorecard, with the extra statistical
detail commonplace today, has not been available.
Fortunately, an original scorebook for
this match survives, and is kept at the Surrey County Cricket Club. It is the
oldest-known surviving Test match scorebook. A copy of this was kindly supplied
to the author by Philip Bailey, and it has proved possible to “re-score” the
match, using the scorebook and contemporary match descriptions (including the
reports from The Times, reproduced in Alfred James’ volume The Second
Australian XI’s Tour of Australia, Britain and New Zealand 1880-81), in
order to calculate the batting times and balls faced for batsmen, along with
other statistics.
Re-scoring matches from traditional
scorebooks can be a challenging task, the essence of which is to reconstruct the
order of overs bowled and assign each ball to a specific batsman. Fortunately,
in the case of this Test, the compiler is aided by the fact that the ends of
most bowling spells are delineated in the scorebook. However, there are
complications, concerning the order of bowlers used and their overs. For
example, in some cases a bowler’s first block of 20 overs is listed below
his second block , and the order that the bowlers were actually used is not
always the order listed in the scorebook. There are also a couple of cases
where changes of bowlers were neither indicated in the scorebook nor mentioned
in the match descriptions. These have been rather painstakingly inferred. At
one point Albert Shaw “crossed” , i.e. bowled two consecutive overs from
opposite ends. This was permitted (to a limited extent) under the Laws of the
day.
There is a particular problem in that
the occurrences of byes and leg byes get no mention in the bowling analyses.
The approximate locations of these can be inferred when batsmen appear to
change ends without runs being recorded. As it happens, all byes and leg byes
can be accounted for, but in most cases their precise position cannot be
pinpointed. This produces uncertainties in calculating balls faced for batsmen.
So for most innings of significance, the Balls Faced listed below must be
regarded as estimates, albeit fairly accurate ones. For example, the 152 by WG
Grace is given as 294 balls, whereas the possible range is actually 289-298
balls, and Murdoch’s 153*, given as 358 balls, is actually in the range
350-366. It should be pointed out, however, that the “true” values are much
more likely to be towards the middles of these ranges that at the extremes.
A coherent reconstruction of this match
also requires that the batsmen crossed during some catches. These cases appear
to be consistent with the match descriptions, including the famous catch off
Bonnor by GF Grace (who died only weeks after this match). Folklore has it that
the batsmen crossed twice while the ball was in the air, but the next ball of
the same over, which was hit for four, was faced by Bonnor’s batting partner
Boyle.
There is one odd anomaly in the
scorebook. In England’s first innings, Boyle is listed as bowling 41 overs in
the summary, yet in the detail, 44 overs are filled in. The value of 41 overs
is also given in contemporary reports including The Times and Wisden.
Somewhere along the line, the anomaly has been noted, and Boyle’s figures in
later published reports were adjusted to 44 overs. However, it transpires that
those last three overs, in which no runs are recorded, are in fact spurious;
they don’t fit in to the sequence anywhere, and have been ignored here.
One other curiosity in the scorebook can
be noted: the careful distinction of social status among the English players.
There are five different indications of social standing, even though the eleven
players included three brothers. There is a “Lord”, an “Hon.”, three
“Esquires”, two players a denoted by initials and surname, while the three
working-class professionals are known by surname only.
This work carried out as part of a
project to bring the reported scores of as many historic Test matches as
possible up to modern standards. The first volume of the resulting series, Test
Cricket in Australia 1877-2002, which will include batting times for over
95% of individual Test innings played in Australia, is being published in 2002.
A subsequent volume covering Tests played in England, which will include the
match in question, is planned for 2003.
England
v Australia, Kennington Oval: 6, 7, 8 September 1880.
Balls per over: 4. Captains:
Lord Harris (Eng), WL Murdoch (Aus)
Umpires: HH Stephenson, R Thom.
Hours of play: 11:05, 11:20 or 11:30 to
2:00, 2:50 to 5:30-6:00 (approximate).
|
D |
Close
of play |
Not out batsmen |
Day Runs |
Wk |
Ov |
Min |
Crowd |
|
1 |
En
410/8 |
Lyttelton
4 |
410 |
8 |
199.1 |
340 |
20,814 |
|
2 |
En
420, Au 149, Au
170/6 (86 ov., 160 min) |
Murdoch
79, Bonnor 13 |
329 |
18 |
172.3 |
330 |
19,863 |
|
3 |
Au
327, En 5/57 |
|
214 |
9 |
124.2 |
227 |
3,751 |
|
|
|
TOTALS |
953 |
35 |
496.2 |
897 |
44,428 |
|
ENGLAND |
1st Innings |
R |
M |
4,6 |
BF |
|
|
EM
Grace |
c
Alexander b Bannerman |
36 |
81 |
4,- |
94 |
Ct at Mid-off |
|
WG
Grace |
b
Palmer |
152 |
255 |
12,- |
294 |
|
|
AP
Lucas |
b
Bannerman |
55 |
109 |
5,- |
121 |
|
|
W
Barnes |
b
Alexander |
28 |
50 |
1,- |
67 |
Played on |
|
Lord
Harris (c) |
c
Bonnor b Alexander |
52 |
90 |
7,- |
97 |
Slip |
|
F
Penn |
b
Bannerman |
23 |
35 |
3,- |
45 |
|
|
AG
Steel |
c
Boyle b Moule |
42 |
50 |
5,- |
66 |
Mid-on |
|
Hon.
Lyttelton (w) |
Not
out |
11 |
21 |
1,- |
32 |
|
|
GF
Grace |
c
Bannerman b Moule |
0 |
2 |
0,- |
2 |
Slip |
|
A
Shaw |
b
Moule |
0 |
6 |
0,- |
4 |
|
|
F
Morley |
Run
out |
2 |
5 |
0,- |
9 |
|
|
Extras |
b
8, lb 11, nb 0, w 0 |
19 |
|
|
|
|
|
Total |
210.3 overs All out |
420 |
|
357 |
min |
|
WG Grace 50: 102 balls, 2x4. 100 in 155 min,
211b, 6x4. 150 in 290b, 12x4.
AP Lucas 50: 117b, 5x4. Lord Harris 50: 92b,
7x4.
|
Fall of Wickets |
|
|
|
|
Bowling |
Wkt |
R |
Ov |
M |
nb,w |
6s |
|||
|
Wkt |
fow |
R |
Min |
B |
|
|
|
HF
Boyle |
0 |
71 |
41 |
15 |
-,- |
- |
|
1 |
91 |
91 |
81 |
189 |
E Gra / WG |
|
GE
Palmer |
1 |
116 |
70 |
27 |
-,- |
- |
|
|
2 |
211 |
120 |
109 |
257 |
A Luc / WG |
|
G
Alexander |
2 |
69 |
32 |
10 |
-,- |
- |
|
|
3 |
269 |
58 |
50 |
120 |
W Bar / WG |
|
AC
Bannerman |
3 |
111 |
50 |
12 |
-,- |
- |
|
|
4 |
281 |
12 |
10 |
20 |
WG / L Har |
|
PS
McDonnell |
0 |
11 |
2 |
0 |
-,- |
- |
|
|
5 |
322 |
41 |
35 |
85 |
F Penn / Harris |
|
WH
Moule |
3 |
23 |
12.3 |
4 |
-,- |
- |
|
|
6 |
404 |
82 |
46 |
106 |
Harris / A Ste |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
7 |
410 |
6 |
6 |
13 |
A
Ste / H Lyt |
|
England 100: 216 balls |
|
|
|
||||
|
8 |
410 |
0 |
2 |
6 |
G Gra / H Lyt |
|
200:
420 balls. 300: 637 balls. |
|
|
|
||||
|
9 |
413 |
3 |
6 |
16 |
A Shaw / H Lyt |
|
400: 772 balls. |
|
|
|
||||
|
10 |
420 |
7 |
5 |
18 |
F Mor / H Lyt |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||
|
357 |
min, |
49.8
runs/ 100 balls |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||
|
AUSTRALIA |
1st Innings |
R |
M |
4,6 |
BF |
|
|
AC
Bannerman |
b
Morley |
32 |
48 |
5,- |
54 |
|
|
WL
Murdoch (c) |
c
Barnes b Steel |
0 |
22 |
0,- |
19 |
Ct mid-off |
|
TU
Groube |
b
Steel |
11 |
39 |
1,- |
44 |
|
|
PS
McDonnell |
c
Barnes b Morley |
27 |
49 |
2,- |
41 |
Low at mid-on |
|
J
Slight |
c
GF Grace b Morley |
11 |
29 |
1,1* |
35 |
3rd man |
|
JM
Blackham (w) |
c
& b Morley |
0 |
1 |
0,- |
2 |
High catch |
|
GJ
Bonnor |
c
GF Grace b Shaw |
2 |
9 |
0,- |
8 |
Big hit: long-on |
|
HF
Boyle |
not
out |
36 |
53 |
5,- |
47 |
|