SPORTS AND GAMES 457 



a prelude to the so-called triangular tournament of 1912, and in the meantime an English 

 team under the management of the Marylebone Cricket Club carried through a wonder- 

 fully successful tour in Australia in 1911-12..,. i i>,i. 



The South Africans in Australia hardly did as well as had been expected. Their strength 

 was considered to lie chiefly in their bowling, but they were disappointed by the inability 

 of A. E. Vogler, on whom much reliance was placed, to do justice to his reputation. On. the 

 other hand they found Australian batting in its prime. In eleven-a-side matches as many 

 as fifteen Australian batsmen averaged more than 30 runs an innings against the South 

 Africans, and eleven of them more than 40 runs. The most formidable were V. T. Trumper, 

 who exceeded 75 runs an innings and in Test matches averaged 94.57, W. Bardsley, W. W. 

 Armstrong, C. Kelleway, C. G. Macartney and V. S. Ransford. The Australian bowling was 

 of no very high quality, though W. J. Whitty was very consistent, and H. V. Hordern, who 

 was able to match the South African "googly " bowling with a similar style, had a great share 

 in winning two Test matches. For the South Africans, G. A. Faulkner, besides bowling 

 well, batted with wonderful certainty, failing in none of the Test matches to make at least 

 loo runs in the two innings. The South Africans won the third Test match by 38 runs at 

 Adelaide, but they lost the remaining four; and tliey were also beaten once by Victoria and 

 twice by New South Wales. Three of the twenty-two matches were drawn. 



The tour of the M.C.C. team was extraordinarily successful. Of 18 eleven-a-side matches 

 the first Test match, played at Sydney, alone was lost; four were drawn and 18, including four 

 Test matches, were won. The strength of the English team was found principally in the 

 bowling of Barnes and F. R. Foster. Both, these bowlers are above medium pace and of 

 great accuracy. Barnes has a fine command of the leg break with the other break as a 

 variation, and Foster, while often causing the ball to swerve in the air, has a remarkably 

 quick rise from the pitch, and on that account is well suited by fast wickets. The batting of 

 Hobbs, Rhodes, Woolley, G. Gunn and J. W. Hearne contributed much to the success of 

 their side, while J. W. H. T. Douglas, who acted as captain, was of value both as a resolute 

 and patient batsman and as a fast bowler of great precision and a mastery of the swerve. 

 Douglas, who took up the captaincy on P. F. Warner being incapacitated early in the tour 

 by serious illness, distinguished himself by his correct judgment and his unfailing presence of 

 mind in the important matches. The batting of Hobbs has never been excelled in Anglo- 

 Australian contests. Invariably sent in first, he played innings of 187, 178 and 126 not out 

 in' Test matches. His first-wicket partnership with Rhodes in the fourth match at Mel- 

 bourne amounted to 323 runs the greatest first-wicket partnership for a Test match and 

 the whole innings aggregated 589. The fifth match was won after the English team had 

 been 144 runs in arrears on the first innings. The Australian bowling again seemed to be 

 less dangerous than in previous years; but H. V. Hordern was always formidable. He had 

 a principal hand in winning the first match for Australia and took five wickets in each 

 in-nings of the last match. 



At the end of 1910 a team sent to South Africa by the M.C.C. won two and lost three 

 Test matches. In spite of the brilliancy of Hobbs, the batting was weak on the whole, and 

 it could not cope with the bowling of G. A. Faulkner and Vogler, who took 65 out of 85 

 wickets. Faulkner was also by far the best of the South African batsmen, having an average 

 of 60.55 runs in the Test matches to the 67.37 of Hobbs. : 



In consequence of the exceptionally bad weather of the summer of 1912 the Triangular 

 Tournament in England was a complete failure. From the first the South African team was 

 unlucky, several players, and notably Faulkner., being at. one time or other more or less 

 incapacitated, while they also seemed to be more adversely affected by the slow wickets than 

 their opponents. They were without the assistance of Vogler. On the other hand Australia 

 was unable to send to England a representative team. A dispute in which several of the 

 foremost players were at variance with the Australian Board of Control prevented the 

 inclusion in the party of Trumper, Hill, Armstrong, and Ransford. The weather, however, 

 did not permit a convincing trial of strength between the English and Australian teams. Of 

 three matches arranged only one was finished; and that one was much interrupted by rain, 

 being concluded with difficulty in four days at the Oval on a treacherous wicket. It was 

 decisively won by England, who had the advantage of greater experience of such conditions 

 and bowling much better suited to them. England defeated South Africa at Lords, Leeds 

 and the Oval, and Australia had two easy victories at Manchester and Lords. Throughout 

 this series of matches sudden, spells of successful bowling were surprisingly common. In 

 more than one of these Pegler (South Africa) was concerned; and it was curious that his 

 periods of effectiveness would occur without any apparent cause when the batting had for 

 some time been more or less dominant. In the first match between South Africa and Aus- 

 tralia at Manchester, J. T. Matthews (Australia) performed the "hat trick" in both innings 

 an unprecedented feat: Pegler took six England wickets at Leeds for 16 runs when 308 had 

 been scored for four wickets: G. R. Hazlitt (Australia) against England at the Oval closed 

 an innings in which five wickets were down for 170 for the addition of 5 runs. 



A team of Indians visited England in 1911 and played 14 matches, losing ten, but beat- 

 ing Leicestershire and Lincolnshire. Lord Hawke took a team to Argentina in 1911-12. 



