History of Test Cricket From 1877 To 1883 - The First Test Tour: 1876/77

The First Test Tour: 1876/77

Two Englishmen tried to promote separate tours to Australia for the 1876/77 season: James Lillywhite pushed a tour of professional cricketers, while Fred Grace (another of that immortal kin) promoted one that would have included amateurs. Despite the many initial preparations for Grace's tour, it fell through, leaving Lillywhite's to go solo. It visited New Zealand first and then Australia. Its highlights were two games against a Combined Australia XI, which later came to be recognised as the first Test Matches.

Lillywhite's team was considered weak. It did not include any of the leading amateurs of the day, like "The Champion" WG Grace, and was further handicapped after its only specialist wicketkeeper, Ted Pooley, was left behind in New Zealand facing a charge of assault. The Australasian wrote of Lillywhite's men that they were

by a long way the weakest side that have ever played in the colonies, notwithstanding the presence of Shaw, who is termed the premier bowler of England. If Ulyett, Emmett, and Hill are specimens of the best fast bowling in England, all we can say is, either they have not shown their proper form, or British bowling has sadly deteriorated.

The first Test, against a Combined Australia XI, was billed as the "Grand Combination Match", and was scheduled to be held at the East Melbourne Cricket Ground, because the Melbourne Cricket Ground had been booked by Grace. With Grace having pulled out, however, Lillywhite moved his matches to the larger, and more profitable, MCG, to the considerable ire of the East Melbourne functionaries. The Combined Australia XI included cricketers from New South Wales and Victoria, but there were also some notable absentees. Fred Spofforth, Australia's legendary "Demon Bowler", did not play in the first Test as a show of dissent at the non-selection of Billy Murdoch, the New South Wales wicket-keeper to whom he then attributed much of his success. He declared that he would play only if Murdoch kept wicket, but Jack Blackham had already been chosen. Spofforth's appeal was seen as a display of insolence shocking in a man of twenty-three. "As this could not be arranged," went the sardonic remark of the time, "this modest gentleman was left out." Despite the name of the Australian side, all but four of its members were British-born.