His Final Test
As a right-hand batsman, Blackham was a useful lower-order player. At the age of forty, he played his last Test Match at the SCG against Andrew Stoddart's English team. As Blackham spun the coin on that opening morning, "Stoddy" remarked, "Someone will be swearing directly, Jack. I hope it's you."
It was not: Blackham won the toss and elected to bat, and made 74 runs in a partnership of 154 with Syd Gregory, who scored 201. This helped Australia on its way to a massive (and apparently unassailable) total of 586. Ater England followed on, Blackham's men were eventually left to make just 176 in the final innings to win. They had scored 113 for the loss of just two wickets at the close of play on the fifth evening, but it rained hard during the night.
Blackham's veteran team-mate George Giffen, however, slept right through the storm and was blissfully unaware of it when he got up the following morning, a bright and sunny one. Giffen greeted his captain cheerily at breakfast but was met with a face as "long as a coffee-pot". Blackham told him what had happened and forecast ominously the danger as the Australian team travelled to the ground, the carriage leaving deep furrows in the moist turf. Blackham was right to be so concerned: on a horrific "sticky dog", his side eventually collapsed to 166 all out, losing the match by ten runs. At the close, with the Englishmen celebrating, "Blackham walked up and down the balcony like a caged tiger, muttering 'Cruel luck - cruel luck'.... In short, the team were thoroughly cut up seeing victory thus snatched away.... 'The rain beat us,' said some of them."
"No!" retorted the Prince of Wicketkeepers. "The sun beat us" - which was probably closer to the mark.
Blackham injured himself in this match and never played Test cricket or kept wickets again.
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