Scorecard for only Test Match played - 6th-8th
September (3 day test)
1880
saw the first Australian side tour England, the side
was captained by W.L. Murdoch. No matches were arranged
against and England eleven as the English were still
unconvinced about the Australian's ability at cricket.
However, it took C.W. Alcock (Secretary of Surrey) to
see the possibilities of a game and arranged it. It
was Alcock who had been a major part in setting up the
Football Association, of which he became Secretary.
A match was arranged to take place at the Kennington
Oval on three days, 6th to 8th September, 1880. These
days had been originally reserved for the match against
Sussex and this match goes down in the history books
as the first Test Match to take place in England.
Spofforth,
Australia's main bowler was missing with an injured
finger and 15 players made their debut in the match,
eight of them for the home side including W.G. Grace,
his two brothers E.M. and G.F. This provided the first
instance of three brothers playing together in the same
test (it was equalled 12 years later by the Hearnes
- but not all brothers played on the same side !)
Lord Harris
again captained the English side, batted first and the
Oval crowd saw W.G. Grace score the first English Test
century with a score of 152. England scored 420 in the
first innings and along with A.P. Lucas added 120 for
the 2nd wicket, the first every century partnership.
australia were forced to follow on after only scoring
149, Fred Morley was the chief reason taking 5 wickets
for 56 runs.
Murdoch
scored 153 not out in Australia's second innings (0
in the first), and together with a wag in the tail,
forced England to bat for the second time in the match,
needing a mere 57 runs for victory. It wasn't long before
they found themselves in all sorts of trouble and at
5 for 31, could be forgiven that they could loose the
match ! However W.G. Grace came in and steered England
to a 5 wicket win.
One sad
note to add, G.F. Grace caught a chill and died at Basingstoke
exactly a fortnight after the match. |
