500 NOT OUT
England’s 500th home Test starts tomorrow. Here, the Editor of Wisden takes you back to where it all began...
England’s first home Tes t , in september 1880, was a game so hastily arranged it almost failed to take place at all.
The australians that summer were not the most welcome visitors, following a riot at sydney in early 1879, when a crowd of new south Welshmen — angered by the dismissal of local star batsman Billy Murdoch in a match against lord Harris’s England side — stormed the pitch, assaulting the umpire and the players.
so when Murdoch led his team to England 18 months later, proper matches proved hard to arrange.
MCC did not want to host the australians for a representative game against England — ‘Test match’ was not yet in common usage — and it was left to The Oval to step in.
Unlike today’s carefully calibrated fixture lists, this was a seat-of-the-pants affair. australia had been scheduled to play a three- day match starting at Hove on september 6 but surrey secretary Charles alcock paid sussex £100 to forgo the privilege and set about persuading England’s finest cricketers to turn up in south london.
The two countries had already contested three games, all at Melbourne — the first two in March and april 1877, the third in January 1879. australia led 2-1. now, the return clash, scheduled for three days, sparked serious interest.
More than 40,000 turned up on the first two days to watch a sport that was still evolving. Pads had been introduced as recently as 1836, and wicketkeeping gloves around 1850.
not until 1864 were bowlers allowed to bowl overarm. and the facial hair was outrageous.
Overs lasted four balls, bats lacked the sweet spot and thick edges that bowlers so fear today, and pitches were uncovered. If it rained, as it did on the first evening of the Oval Test, it was tough luck on the batting side.
England were the beneficiaries, scoring 420 after winning the toss, then claiming 16 australian wickets on the second day as the elements took effect and the tourists followed on.
Murdoch’s brilliant unbeaten 153 helped set England 57, which proved a struggle. Wg grace, however, coming in at no 7 on his Test debut, saw them home by five wickets.
Wg had opened in the first innings with his brother Edward and scored 152. a third brother, Fred, was also playing in his first Test — though it would also prove his last.
a fortnight after bagging a pair and famously catching a huge skyer beneath the gasometers from the giant australian george Bonnor as the batsmen turned for a third, Fred spent the night on a damp mattress, contracted pneumonia and died.
Two years later, at the same venue, it was joked that the English game had met a similar fate. a seven-run defeat by the australians had persuaded the
Sporting Times to publish a mock obituary of English cricket.
and when England visited australia that winter, a group of Melbourne society ladies presented captain Ivo Bligh with an urn containing the ashes of a bail, or a ball, or possibly a veil.
a legend was born — and Test cricket has never looked back.