Stoddart Andrew Ernest - Stoddys mission: the first great test series, 1894-1895

The first tour of Australia by an English cricket team had taken place 33 years before, in 186162. This was a band of professionals, mostly from Surrey, who were unafraid of seasicknessor, at least, they kept their fear unto themselves as best they couldand keen to pocket the l50 fee together with whatever else they could make by selling bats and other goods that were in short supply in the young colony. The cricketers of New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania were still far from competent enough to take on the Englishmen on even terms, and all 12 matches with the locals were against teams of 18 or even 22.

Two years after Heathfield Harman Stephensons 186162 pioneering venture, George Parr of Nottinghamshire led the second English team to Australia, having been captain of the very first English overseas tour: to North America in 1859, when the rough Atlantic crossing imposed a reluctance in many of the players ever to risk another sea voyage. Parr, the mighty hitter, triumphantly landed his men in Australia in December 1863 and set about demonstrating English superiority against often feeble opposition in Melbourne, Bendigo and Ballaratwith three weeks in New Zealand halfway through the tourhaving come close to losing his life together with the lives of his precious team when their ship was in collision with another vessel soon after setting out from Sydney to Melbourne. The other vessel sank, and Parr, who for a time was frozen with horror, learned something about English phlegm as his best fast bowler, John Jackson, slept through the pandemonium, having sunk a great deal of ale at the farewell lunch in Sydney, while George Tarrant, another ferocious fast bowler (who caught boy Spofforths imagination), was so overcome by panic that he jumped into a lifeboat which was being lowered to save drowning passengers from the other ship.

Australia at last got sight of the monarch of the game, Dr WG Grace, then aged 25, when he accepted Melbourne Cricket Clubs invitation to take out a team in 187374. Recently married, WG made this an extended honeymoon, and after a couple of early losses, the Englishmen won consistently, though more easily against the local teams of 15 than 18. Grace had a fair idea of the strengthor more accurately the weaknessof Australian cricket as the two preceding English teams had found it, but by the end of the tour he was prepared to acknowledge that standards were rising. These tours were helping to establish cricket as Australias national summer game, and the influx of immigrants who played and the settling in Australia of top players Charlie Lawrence and Billy Caffyn, who coached widely and wisely, launched an attitude and a passion which would eventually take Australia to the pinnacle of world cricket.