George Francis (cricketer) - The 1928 Tour of England

The 1928 Tour of England

The 1926 Imperial Cricket Conference decided that representative matches between the established Test nations – England, Australia and South Africa – and three new sides from India, the West Indies and New Zealand would henceforward be considered as Test matches, and the 1928 West Indies team was the first to make this transition. Francis, along with his Barbadian partner Griffith and Learie Constantine, who had toured England in 1923, were the three fast bowlers in the side, but the tour as a whole was a disappointment: "So far from improving upon the form of their predecessors, the team of 1928 fell so much below it that everybody was compelled to realise that the playing of Test Matches between England and West Indies was a mistake," wrote Wisden. Francis "although still fast, had not quite the pace or accuracy he possessed in 1923". With the side heavily reliant on their fast bowlers, the slip fielders and wicketkeepers "blundered time and again".

Griffith alone of the three fast bowlers made an impact in the three Test matches, taking 11 wickets; Constantine, a failure with both bat and ball in the Tests, compensated with 1381 runs and 107 wickets in all first-class matches; Francis shone neither in the Tests nor in the other games. His six Test wickets cost 42 runs each and he conceded three-and-a-half runs an over; in first-class games he took just 56 wickets at an average of 31.96. He bowled West Indies' first ball in Test cricket in the game at Lord's, and in the match at The Oval he took four wickets for 112 runs, but England needed to bat only once in each of the three Tests, and the lowest total scored off the West Indies' bowling was the 351 of the second match. In the games against the first-class counties, Francis did not take five wickets in any single innings.

In a first-class festival cricket match at the end of the season against the Harlequins, an amateur team composed of former Oxford and Cambridge University players, Francis enjoyed his best-ever match with the bat: in the first innings, he made 61 and put on 107 for the last wicket in 50 minutes with Joe Small; in the second innings, he added 73 with Griffith for the last wicket and was 32 not out when the innings ended. The 61 was Francis' highest score in first-class cricket and his only score of more than 50.