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Was it really a Golden Age? – Part 1 – with Tim Wigmore
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In this episode, cricket journalist Tim Wigmore joins the podcast to discuss whether the so-called 'Golden Age of Cricket' was exactly that. With host Tom Ford, Tim examines the status of Test cricket prior to the First World War, the evolutions that occurred during that period, and the role technology played in popularising Test cricket.
Tim Wigmore is a sports writer for the Daily Telegraph (UK), and has also written for The Economist and ESPNCricinfo. He is the author of Crickonomics and Cricket 2.0: Inside the T20 Revolution, which won the Wisden Book of the Year in 2020. His latest publication is Test Cricket: A History, and is available here.
Presenter & Producer: Tom Ford
DONATE: You can buy Tom Ford a coffee! Every donation helps with production and inspires Tom to keep the podcast going. You can donate from a little as $5. Visit: buymeacoffee.com/GoldenAgeOfCricket
All music used in podcast comes from the University of California Santa Barbara’s remarkable collection of wax cylinder’s from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which are free to download and use. You can donate to the upkeep of these recordings via their website.
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Transcript
00:00:01
Speaker
In the good old summertime, in the good old summertime.
Introduction to the Golden Age of Cricket
00:00:08
Speaker
Hello and welcome to this episode of the Golden Age of Cricket podcast.
00:00:12
Speaker
My name is Tom Ford. The phrase, the golden age of cricket, is so indelibly linked with the sport's 25-year period prior to the outbreak of the First World War, that it might seem folly to question it.
00:00:26
Speaker
It was a phrase popularised by the most famous cricket writer of all time, Neville Cardist, which only adds to the apparent sanctity of the idiom. But how accurate is it, and does it encapsulate the age and everything it represents?
00:00:40
Speaker
Today, with the help of my guest, I'll attempt to answer a question I've pondered for a while. Was it really a golden age of cricket?
Exploring the Golden Age with Tim Wigmore
00:00:49
Speaker
Tim Wigmore is a sports writer for Britain's The Daily Telegraph and has also written for The Economist and yeah ESPN Crickinfo.
00:00:58
Speaker
He is the author of Crickonomics and Cricket 2.0 Inside the T20 Revolution, which in 2020 won the Wisdom Book of the Year. His latest publication, Test Cricket, A History, is a vast, sweeping narrative of 150 years of Red Bull cricket's highest format, and it's the publication which concerns us today.
00:01:20
Speaker
Tim, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for having me, Tom. So, Tim, how much did you know already, or how much did you think you knew about the golden age of cricket prior to this project, and what aspects in particular did you find interesting?
00:01:36
Speaker
So I think I knew the Golden Age probably in a way lot of people know, which is kind of through the the the myths um and the kind of folklore ah around it. um And obviously, I'd and actually, I knew it quite well.
00:01:49
Speaker
I knew it. Actually, it was the photos that lingered. I think that the Ranji photos, the obviously the very famous, that the Trumper, really iconic photo. So those were the and you kind of crawl they were kind of central to how I was thinking about it.
00:02:05
Speaker
part of my research, I i looked at archives. I also looked to stuff like, you know, collective writings from Ranji, from Spoffers, I know a little bit before, the but but actually to to get a sense of what it felt for contemporaries was was really interesting and and the the changes that do happen. And it is, ah you know, the whole architecture of Test Cricket has changed so dramatically in in this period in terms of batting more than anything else because of...
00:02:34
Speaker
ah basically huge improvements in the quality of pitches means that batsmen can start to trust the bounce a bit more and we see this evolution in scoring and we see Ranji in the like leg glance and stuff.
Cricket's Exclusivity and Lost Test Nations
00:02:47
Speaker
um So we have these seminal evolutions in how the game is played and then I suppose the flip side of that is it's you know, take a step back, you know, such a golden era, then why are only three countries actually test nations at this period?
00:03:00
Speaker
Yeah. Basically, the great what-if moment for cricket, the great starting doors moment for test cricket is... is in 1909 when the imperial, the ICC first ICC is created and the first world is imperial.
00:03:12
Speaker
um So if you're not member of the of the British Empire, you can't be in it. And that's what got me looking at Argentina and USA, really the lost test notions. So it's it's an absolutely fascinating era because you have, it's such a you know vibrant,
00:03:27
Speaker
era on the pitch in many ways, but you have these problems off it. And also you do have people, you know, you're people worrying even then about the future of Test cricket, which people who follow Test cricket love to do in so many ways. So it's a really, really rich era. And it does actually go a long way to to shaping the game's future evolution for better and for worse.
00:03:47
Speaker
Yeah, and at this point of time, I need to congratulate you on the book. It's a fascinating read. It reads very easily, and it does um describe some of those rather tricky periods in Test Cricket, where it gets a bit jumbled between nations, and we'll come back to that bit later. But Tim, still on the research, did you research and write this book in a chronological order?
00:04:13
Speaker
Or did you jump around a bit between eras? So I um actually started doing stuff um that I had a bit more of a sense on.
00:04:25
Speaker
um So sort of 60s, 70s and so on. I did sort of three or four chapters, partly because I don't think i wanted to... I thought starting at the would always be too daunting. And then actually from then I did the vast majority... Yeah, in a...
00:04:38
Speaker
yeah in the chapter form as they appear. um So I kind of did the weird thing of almost starting in the middle, but then actually from then I started in the in at the very start. ah And actually by, I suppose by doing that, i i was I was able to get a sense of, um trying to get sense of what was actually kind of new in each era and what was,
00:04:58
Speaker
Actually, not not not as new, because obviously these, you know, often things get credited with being part of an era. um And they happened way before. The reverse sweep, to give one example, actually, you know, that actually was popularised in the 1960s in Pakistan. So when you think of the 19-2000s invention, that that's not not quite true. so um Yeah, cricket, obviously, in each era, I like to take credit with things for being invented in that era.
00:05:21
Speaker
um But no, it was it was I mean, I've read a huge, I think the bibliography over 300 books, and I read a lot of contemporary autobiographies and stuff. and um And I would say that the You know, obviously, the Ranji's book, you know, his classic, the Jubilee Book of Cricket was a fantastic book.
00:05:38
Speaker
In general, the autobiographies in this era are a hell of a lot shorter than maybe Steve Waugh's autobiography and so on. so and mean i was able to get through it a fair few and probably and without being as time consuming as it would be be nowadays.
00:05:51
Speaker
No, absolutely. And I was thinking about Steve Waugh when you brought that up. um I mentioned this at the top of the program.
Romanticism and Nostalgia in Cricket's Golden Age
00:06:00
Speaker
ah Many people already know this, but the phrase, the golden age of cricket was popularized by Neville Cardis.
00:06:09
Speaker
um What do you think he actually meant? ah Because this is part of my question about was it a golden age? We have to define what a golden age actually means.
00:06:22
Speaker
What do you think Cardus meant by the golden age and why did it have a particular affection for him? Well, he is quite honest. you He says the golden age is partly representing, he says, the distant and lost world of the early 1900s.
00:06:40
Speaker
And that is, of course, when he is growing up and he goes and he yeah he sees Trump as yeah famous century before lunch Old Trafford in 1902, which actually is probably about these three weeks, that are the the Trumper innings and the Gilbert Jessup innings.
00:06:55
Speaker
in a three-run Australia win, a one-wicket England win. And that is, I mean, that is just ridiculous. and you So that is the absolute peak of golden age and almost, you know, you could even say, you know test cricket more broadly. It's extraordinary to have that.
00:07:07
Speaker
But so Carlos is, he's, yeah he's very romantic, clearly, he's also, in a way maybe not quite as romantic as we think. So I think he has this kind of awareness that he's, he knows this is very not nostalgic as he's he's saying it. And he's aware that um he's not just describing the cricket, really. This is a whole lost world because of the war to come.
00:07:30
Speaker
And it's a sense of kind of, um, of innocence, which, you know, people of course are looking back in rose-tinted way because of the calamity that that hits the world after. um And I suppose we also have, you know, the fact with...
00:07:48
Speaker
Victor Trumper being probably the absolute embodiment of the golden age, the fact that he dies so young, you know, he's 37, 1915, so he's not killed in the war. But even in the midst of the Great War, it's still an unfathomable loss in Australia. You get thousands of people lining the streets, which which is hard to...
00:08:09
Speaker
kind of almost hard to reconcile with with you know because you have so many people of trump's age and younger who are dying every every day um but i think when people are mourning trump yes they are mourning you know ah a great a great batsman and actually a ah man who they many of them love but they're also that war they're mourning a a lost world um so these kind of all come come together and i think it is actually a great era for cricket on pitch in many ways but then the memory of that is multiplied by what happens later.
00:08:37
Speaker
um and And so it all kind of comes together. And of course, in terms of memory as well, we we can talk about you know photographs, you know the the evolution of photo technology is such a, actually you can now, a memory is not just in your head. You can now see something, of course, this is why lots of people can almost imagine that they saw Ranji and Trump are back even when they they hadn't, or maybe they've seen them counter games, they haven't seen them in test matches. Well, now with these,
00:09:03
Speaker
some fantastic photographs you can see. And actually, you know, research in the book, you know one of, we have quite a lot quite lot of photos in the book, which is brilliant. ah And I still think the other photos are the best, and partly because the batsmen who are often the kind of the main characters in terms of how we're watching Test Ricket, well, they don't all don't have helmets on. So it's it's actually much more evocative than the the the later photos. Yes.
00:09:22
Speaker
So i think a number of things all come come together in this era, which is, it's an amazing era. And it has, but also has these kind of contradictions and these these tensions, which I wanted to bring about. um So I guess my, yeah, I have a, you know, in researching this, I do have a real kind of reverence, you'd like, for the college. I think a lot of ways it does deserve its name, but I think also our account of it probably should be a little bit more nuanced than it is in Cardiff's account.
00:09:49
Speaker
Hearing you talk about Tromper's death is absolutely accurate and what it meant for a very young Australian psyche at the time, a very young nation. We can't forget ah perhaps the other deaths at the time, notably W.G. Grace, who died just within a few months. yeah Yeah, within a few months, certainly from the British perspective. Andrew Stoddart as well. So there just seemed to be around that time some are a collection of former cricketers who happened to pass away.
00:10:22
Speaker
And it was almost like the passing of innocence and obviously the ah beginning of the calamity of war, which everyone knew was coming. But when it happened, it really was the final curtain on a very affectionate age at the time.
00:10:39
Speaker
So to answer this question about the state of test cricket in the golden age, my listeners will know that I usually use the and imaginary parameters of 1890 to 1914, which is actually a bracket used by ah many authors, but no one has the exact timeframe.
00:11:00
Speaker
um i would slightly challenge yours, but that's all good. I know. i know you i know in your book you've pointed out. That is fine. Others believe it begins in 1895, which is Grace's Indian summer. But for this argument, let's say it is 1890, to understand that period, it would be good to understand the period which came immediately before it, so the 1880s and the state of test cricket in the 1880s.
Competitiveness in Test Cricket: Pre and Post-WWI
00:11:31
Speaker
So, Tim, could you elaborate a bit more on Test cricket in that era and why it isn't included in the so-called Golden Age. So obviously we have the the birth of the Ashes 1882, which is a five result of the first Test match. So yeah people think, oh, that's when it all begins, when it kicks off. And it it's actually not because you you have you have a terrible era of Ashes cricket. So the first eight ah series when the Ashes are contested, I'll come back to that that that bit later. ah But yeah, they're all won by England, so from 1882 to 1890. And it's just these nonstop, and it is kind of a nonstop mega rashes.
00:12:08
Speaker
And England are really, really dominant. um And the people are pretty worried about, you know, is this series just losing competitiveness all altogether? um And of course, I talked about the Ashes. Well, people aren't really care thinking about the Ashes at all at at this point. So the Ashes, which event in 1882, they kind of go dormant for, you know, 10, 12 years later.
00:12:32
Speaker
and And really a series that changes everything actually is 1894-5. So this is the, you know, this absolutely epic Ashes series. ing England win 3-2 in Australia. so it continues England's dominance, but actually...
00:12:43
Speaker
it's a proper contest for for the first time. And that first time a long, a long period. Australia do win in 1891, 91 too, but it really elevates the series. And it's a five match series as well, because lots of these before they were two or three match series and it was bit of a mess.
00:12:58
Speaker
Um, And this is still an era when you do have these other private tours, which aren't test matches and stuff. But look at with with WG Grace, he only placed two of the first 13 test matches. So often he's just not paid enough to to want to go.
00:13:11
Speaker
And he wouldn't have known what was a test match. In the Australian Jones, in the 1990s, he retrospectively classes matches as test matches. Actually, one of the amazing things I found in the book is until 1948, people are still arguing about retrospectively which matches are test matches. So the 1946 Australian New Zealand match,
00:13:27
Speaker
tests when Australia absolutely obliterate New Zealand or people still arguing for a few years later whether that should count as a test um so yeah it's basically it's not a great era of of test cricket this is ah an era where fixture congestion if you like are just paying Australia the whole time South Africa are very very weak England are sending probably a sort of to be honest, probably like a decent South Africa in this era because they basically don't want to win by too much. And if they said their very best team, it would be ridiculous.
00:13:56
Speaker
australia buriery paint you Australia don't really play South Africa and this until until like the golden age. um So test cricket is... is really not in a ah great, a great place at all. And people are, people are worried about it.
00:14:09
Speaker
And the county championship actually is doing pretty well in this area. So there's there's a sense that, know, is that becoming more, more important? um So, yeah. So the pre-gold-nage test cricket is pretty precarious.
00:14:20
Speaker
And there's, there's possibly a world where, you know, actually we test cricket sort of dies. That's, that's not probably impossible at this point because it's, it's not the juggernaut that it becomes actually very quickly afterwards.
00:14:32
Speaker
grand a are a
00:14:46
Speaker
a There's a great book, which I know you're familiar with because it appears in your bibliography, by an Australian writer written about 15 years ago, Malcolm Knox, called Never a Gentleman's Game.
00:15:01
Speaker
And it specifically talks about the pre-Golden Age era, but then goes into the Golden Age. But he talks about the 1880s in particular, and it's just rife with gambling. And if you look at the cricket cricketers' correspondence, it's just rife with gambling and rioting. And ah they're more concerned about how much they're getting paid, especially the Australians.
00:15:24
Speaker
And that's not to absolve the Golden Age cricketers from wanting money, certainly not But in the eighteen eighty s it just seems to dominate the discourse. It's really interesting.
00:15:35
Speaker
and And amazing. I mean, one of the great, um great great nugget in Marcus's book, which I can quote in mine, is that Australian cricketers in the 1890s, they earned more in real terms than and Australian cricketers until 1997, I think. so so So they're actually very, very well paid at the time because these tours are basically run as ah private enterprise for profit sharing and actually one of the big innovations in the golden age is the MTC starts to take control of tools which helps to get the best players actually going on these tools so 1903 is the first tool that MTC mccc run and that actually means the idea of England is but is more coherent um
00:16:10
Speaker
rather than you're you're sort of picking quite an eclectic way often, which and often the best players, they can't involved at all, partly because if they're not paying enough, that why they give up literally seven, eight months, given the boat trips they were back to go to England england or Australia.
00:16:25
Speaker
I do understand those who argue that the golden age didn't start until, say, that great 1894-95 series. um And you touched on it briefly there, that the previous tour to Australia England 1991-92 which was with WG Grace his second trip to Australia was a bit of a shambles I mean he Australia wanted the great Grace to come out again and then he arrived and he was grossly overweight and he's paraded around like this celebrity and he doesn't really perform that well and of course shamaturism is rife and he's
00:17:02
Speaker
The Australian public are just ridiculing him basically, ah certainly in the field because he can't chase after the ball. He's so overweight. But what comes after that, as you say, the 1894-95 series is, when you look at it through 21st century eyes, it's just amazing. And we've talked about this on my podcast a lot.
00:17:23
Speaker
It's a great series. So many firsts happened in Test cricket in that series, like the first um ah team to enforce the follow-on and then lose, um all these sorts of things. It's really interesting.
00:17:37
Speaker
And I'd encourage any of my listeners who are not familiar with the eighteen ninety four ninety five series investigate So, Tim, that was the era before the Golden Age.
00:17:49
Speaker
Let's now talk about the era which came immediately after the Golden Age. And that is obviously what happened after the end of the First World War. um The whole world had changed after that Nations were decimated by casualties, and certainly England more so than Australia.
00:18:10
Speaker
So what was the state of play of Test cricket after 1918? nineteen eighteen ah There was a pretty poor era again of test cricket, which we actually want to see later after initially after World War Two. um But yeah, Australia basically keep thrashing England and we have this another mega ashes.
00:18:29
Speaker
1920 to 21. We have 10 test matches. Australia win 8-0 over those 10 test matches and they even pay. Games of cricket on the on the deck, on the teams are on the boat together in Australia, even won even win on the win on the deck as well. um So no, it's not ah it's not a great era, ah you know really. 1926 is when the Ashes starts to become competitive again. So Australia, they obliterate England three series series after. um There's obviously a huge sense of...
00:18:57
Speaker
Yeah, obviously such a massive sense of loss and so you know um and the cricket actually, you know oddly contrary to most rhe romantic image actually after World War One, the cricket is actually quite tedious often.
00:19:11
Speaker
um the quote with the Jack Hobbs, who's one of the the best players both before and after. And he talks about how in the golden age, it was, you know, you could make a quick 70, everyone would would be thrilled. And then after it becomes, ah they they start printing the averages and in the papers.
00:19:28
Speaker
and And actually the pitch has kind of become too good. So there's the pitch in golden age. ah It was almost like this sweet spot where, It's still pretty hard to score, but the but you can trust the balance a little bit and you can actually... And and because the tests are... Well, in England, they're three days. and So it encourages fast scoring and then it becomes as almost industrial scoring ah kind of after...
00:19:50
Speaker
World War I. So it's a little tedious. England basically have a lack of lack of bowlers after World War I. So their batting is okay, but their bowlers, they really, really struggle. So the Ashes is not really competitive at all.
00:20:01
Speaker
Although later in the decade, you get three new Test Nations. So that is a seminal for the game. um But no, the period after World War I is not a a vintage era at all of Test cricket. I'm glad that you mentioned the Jack Hobbs quote, because it is something I've come across a lot in my research of the era. If you read newspaper reports from the 1890s, the number of times they talk about a match-defining 40 or a brilliant innings of 29 against great bowling is the sort of thing you wouldn't read about in test cricket today where we have this expectation of if they don't score a century it's almost a failure and on top of that we expect big big test centuries as well which as you say
00:20:49
Speaker
didn't really come about until after the end of the First World War when pitches began to be doped and the era of Bradman and Ponsford and ah Wally Hammond in England where who were just run-scoring machines. But in the Golden Age and before...
00:21:06
Speaker
It was really about style and how you scored the runs. And I think this is what Jack Hobbs is alluding to in his analysis. Certainly as someone who, i mean, Jack Hobbs was someone who played both before and after the Golden Age. He's one of the few who could make that comparison.
00:21:25
Speaker
It's really interesting how we've changed our mentality towards what is a good cricket innings. Yeah, that's that's right. But just but but because the scores are so much lower, so in a sense, there's a romantic element probably to some of the reportage. But actually, if the score was at 160, 160, 180, whatever, then actually 40 was more likely to be at amazing innings. And you're going to have Gilbert Jessup, of course, his test average is 21, but he plays one of the most celebrated innings of all time, which in the basketball era we see pops up on the screen all the time, as as the goal sandwiching still cannot beat.
00:21:59
Speaker
It is interesting. Jessup is... one of those characters, and I'm hoping quite soon to do an episode on Jessup. It's one of the and questions I have about his legacy, and we won't go into it now, but you've touched on it. It's just really interesting.
00:22:16
Speaker
Tim, if we return to the phrase, the golden age of cricket, this is again a question I've pondered a lot doing this podcast, and I'd love to know your thoughts.
Global Reach of the Golden Age: Myth or Reality?
00:22:26
Speaker
I mean, when we say the golden age of cricket,
00:22:31
Speaker
Does that extend itself to all formats of the game? Or was it only a golden age of county cricket or village cricket? Was it a golden age of colonial cricket in Australia?
00:22:43
Speaker
And was it also a golden age of nations we don't often think about, like the USA or the countries in Asia? What are your thoughts? I think when people say golden age of cricket, they mean of English cricket, of cricket in England.
00:22:57
Speaker
So they're talking about some the great test matches. Obviously, 92 stands top in England. They're talking about some great county matches. There's also, is it's also, if you look at the reports at the time, you look at Wisden, it's incredible how much is given to public school cricket. It really is.
00:23:14
Speaker
And it's generally, it's staggering. And you have... i'm you as I think as David Frith observes, you know yes the idea of the Golden Age, it revolves around batting and it revolves around batsmen from public schools, um which is why the praise given to Hobbs, which is seen as the absolute highest praise he could receive, was a professional who bats like an amateur.
00:23:36
Speaker
So it is I think it's we kind of underrate the kind of class element here. This is people of a certain level background batting in a certain way. I think that is a lot of a lot of what's going on here. And of course, there's so much more with before World War I and all the evolution batting, but there is this this link and and it's and you know said that you know the the pad a second line of defence, but not a first and so on. So I do think that is ah such an element that infuses it.
00:24:05
Speaker
And course, South Africa, actually, which we haven't really talked about. South Africa, it is South Africa beating in 1905-6. And they have a quartet of Googled bowls and stuff. So it is an incredible era for Africa too, albeit quite a brief one, because by the time of the Tri-Series in 1912, they're nowhere near as strong. But I think the idea is a kind of quintessentially English idea.
00:24:28
Speaker
And maybe I suppose Australia is only born in 1901. So maybe it's it's too... um Australia is too young to have a golden age at this point. um So I think it is a very English kind of conception um and central. and And I... Yeah, I do talk in the book about the missed opportunities. I think... But I don't think anyone who says golden age is thinking of...
00:24:48
Speaker
of Bart King and his brilliant bowling for USA in England and and cricket being strong in Argentina. I think it's it's seen as a quintessentially english and English concept. And and maybe there's something about English society that's more, lends itself more to nostalgia actually than than say Australia does.
00:25:03
Speaker
um But I do think of it as a very very english English concept. I think you're absolutely right. And I recently, because I have nothing better to do in my spare time, was looking at some British magazines from that era.
00:25:16
Speaker
This is about 1907. And in the sports section, you know, they give a paragraph to Test Cricket. And then the full next page, they have about 16 photographs from the recent, is it Eton versus Harrow match? That would be the game. yeah At Lord's.
00:25:36
Speaker
And, you know, every second photo is a photo of ah the promenade and people walking up and down showing their latest clothes, which... which was, you know, it was a society which had clear class structure and and it was ah very aware of it.
00:25:54
Speaker
But it is a question which I continue to discuss on this podcast. How far does this golden age extend? And perhaps we just we just need to clarify Yeah, just just on that, suppose, there's also an era when to be captain England, you have to be an amateur. So in and so from 1887 to 1952, every captain England is an amateur as well. So that that very much feeds into what we've been discussing, I think.
00:26:21
Speaker
And I think some of the greatest champions of that era, and when I mean champions, I mean they kept the memory of that era alive well after the First World War, were those amateurs like Plum Warner and Archie McLaren and And even Ranji.
00:26:41
Speaker
H.S. Alton. Yeah, absolutely. right ah Yes. And they, mean, I think it's a very human quality to always think that your era was better than this current crop of upstarts. But it was those amateurs who were, even if it didn't yet have a name, ah they kept that pre-World War one era alive in the public mind. and um um
00:27:12
Speaker
da um and and but and ah and ah Now, Tim, ah you've already touched on this briefly, but we'll return now to the technology during the Golden Age and how much this actually helped popularise and spread the word the word of cricket.
Technological Advancements in Cricket's Popularity
00:27:34
Speaker
um I mean, you've already mentioned the Beldum photographs. Was there anything else from that time which would have helped ah firm this era in people's minds?
00:27:46
Speaker
Well, yeah, I think this is very linked to the rise of the ashes. So 1894-5, for the first time, Pall Mall Gazette in London, it publishes these cabled reports um from Down Under, which come out within five days of each ah five hours of each play.
00:28:00
Speaker
So there's a sense of immediacy. So in in London, you can... with a bit of a ton of, but you know, if you're buying the evening, evening paper in London, you can actually follow what's happened in Australia the previous day. So it lends a sense of immediacy to what's happening in kind down under cricket. And I think it probably helps to create a sense of kind of a link between what's happening in England. it for What happens in Australia seems more relevant in England because you can actually observe it not, not in real time, but in close to real time that never been happened before. So I think that's, that's very important as well. And and I think that the photo technologies we had talked about, mean, that is,
00:28:34
Speaker
Amazing, and of course, I think that the the the great status, the Trump photograph is in 1905, and he averages 17 in that Ashes series, but we remember the photo, we don't remember the average.
00:28:48
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And there is also just a hint of film that comes from this era, um but it's rather staged. you know the They're literally playing for the cameras.
00:29:01
Speaker
The only, and I have mentioned this before on the podcast, I think the only existing footage of Trumper batting in a match was from the nineteen ten eleven series in Australia,
00:29:13
Speaker
Australia versus South Africa in Australia. And the footage we have is of Tromper being run out for a duck, which just doesn't which doesn't really sum up his legacy.
00:29:24
Speaker
um If only we had footage from that 1902 series, yeah it would be completely different. um So let's talk about some of the developments of the golden age that happened on the field, Tim.
Innovations in Gameplay: The Googly and Beyond
00:29:40
Speaker
um Developments and evolutions. ah Let's first talk about the googly the wrong depending on which part of the world you're from.
00:29:51
Speaker
How did that delivery come about? Our best knowledge is this is invented by Bernard Boson-Cuey, who is ah nephew a nephew of very famous philosopher in England and and fits within the kind of amateur ethos that was common at the era.
00:30:07
Speaker
um So he's playing at University in 1897, we think. ah And he is he's messing around with with with a tennis ball, aiming to spin it from one end of a table to another. And he he works out that with his his wrist, there's a way to...
00:30:23
Speaker
actually to spin it in a different way to a leg break. So he can spend like an off break without it being so obvious what he's doing. And so suddenly he he has this invention and he starts to to to use it. It takes him three years um to use it in in a match. ah And he ah yeah a lot of initially a lot of balls are kind of they're bouncing twice and stuff.
00:30:46
Speaker
But equally, it's this He now says his first fast so first task wicket with a googly comes off the ball's bounce four different times. um So it does show that, you know, right from the start, this was a very hard ball to master. But actually, and yeah, he only plays seven tests, but he he makes a really crucial role in two Ashes wins, both occasions, you know, with Ed Breit and googly's.
00:31:10
Speaker
And then because witht this is a very this is a cosmopolitan era, actually, um you know some people say this is the first, actually lot of people say this is the first great era of globalisation before World War I. And you have a real synergy between English cricket and South African cricket.
00:31:22
Speaker
and you know Lots of people actually, Anglo-South Africans who could yeah legitimately play for other country. um And so... Reggie sowar Schwartz is one of these. So he's educated England and then he plays for England Rugby Union before he moves to South Africa.
00:31:37
Speaker
um And then he he plays with Bowdoin Quay in 1901 and 1902 for Middlesex. And he learns the the googly and then he returns back to South Africa and then he passes it on to three other South Africans, Aubrey Faulkner.
00:31:50
Speaker
um And then South Africa become the kind of first googly kings and they are both they're using these... and these matting pitches basically, which which offer quite a lot of assistance to to spin.
00:32:00
Speaker
um And they recall incredible 4-1 victory over England in 1905-6, beginning with an epic one-wicket victory in the first in the the first test when the last pair add 45.
00:32:10
Speaker
forty five um It is a seminal series win. it's It's not against a full-strength side, but it's against a pretty good side. So it it really does mark Africa's you know, leap forward, they're now a team that can be taken seriously.
00:32:25
Speaker
And actually just kind of reflecting, yeah, like, you know, with benefit of where we are in 2025, it's incredible that the first team that had, you know, a quartet of spinners that had attacked based around spinners was South Africa, because actually in Test history, um spinners get fewer wickets in Africa than any other country. So it it is it is remarkable this comes from South Africa.
00:32:47
Speaker
That is an excellent point. And yeah I think overall, we underestimate just just the absolute power that the invention of the wrong one would have been at the time. i mean, nothing like this existed before.
00:33:03
Speaker
We take it for granted now that All leg spin bowlers know how to do the reverse spin while it seemingly looks like it comes out of their hand at the ah at the same angle.
00:33:14
Speaker
But at the time, and there are reports of the Australian cricketers facing ah the wrong one for the first time and just being absolutely bamboozled.
00:33:26
Speaker
They had absolutely no idea where where it was going. They quickly catch on, of course, and then it becomes quite standard for leg spin bowlers to bowl it out the other side of the hand. but But perhaps we need to remind ourselves and give credit to the inventor of the wrong one.
00:33:46
Speaker
I mean, for for decades afterwards, it's it's the ball is known as the Bozy, certainly in Australia. Yeah. um And of course, ah because guys cricket has always been about since games, initially there are causes on quarters to ban this unfair unfair weapon. Yes.
00:34:03
Speaker
now um Now, what other evolutions happen in this period? Let's talk about batting. What about the leg glance and or the the late cut? Who popularized that?
00:34:17
Speaker
And what implications would have that had for the fielding team at the time? and So both these shots, leg lance and leg cut, they come from Ranji.
00:34:27
Speaker
um And and the the origin story is really quite amazing, which is he's he's ah at Cambridge. He's he's renowned for, ah he's maybe a bit scared of fast bowling. So he backs away. And his coach, ah he pegs his right his right right leg to the ground, which stops him from from backing away from the ball.
00:34:45
Speaker
um and and And then out of that, he starts to hit straight balls to the leg side. So before, if the ball was on your legs, you might hit it to the leg side. But what Ranji said, he's the first to hit, well, the first that we know and first to do it very well, to hit balls on a third, you know, off stump, middle off stump and even slightly outside off stump line to the leg side.
00:35:04
Speaker
so the um onside. So he, you know, what we think of as a mock wall shot, whatever, you know, flicking the ball from, from just outside off that is a, that is that comes from, from Randy. So it's not, not that people never hit the leg side before, but only if it was,
00:35:18
Speaker
it was the ball was aimed at their legs which is why you would commonly have probably a seven two even eight an eight one field so what rangy does he changes the whole the geometry of the batting of the of the field really from from batsmen so it opens up new errors to score runs uh and bowlers suddenly they can't so before you know if you bowl outside of some you just didn't your legs side so just didn't need anyone there and now as a bowler buts you have much more to to think about so I guess we saw with but WG Grace, he was the first to play off both the front and the back foot. So before you had people who played off either the front or the back.
00:35:54
Speaker
and And then Ranji's almost probably the next great leap forward in in in batting. So he you know he's playing both front and back and he's... he's opening up the the field um and obviously it's just again but this is important but stylistically it's a beautiful beautiful shot and that and that does add add a level to yeah the understanding of it and the appreciation of it and even again we with photographs you know just just looking at the shot it is ah it is an incredible shot shot shot to see such an elegant shot and that that is all important um so it all kind of comes together and i've got the the the extra layer is
00:36:27
Speaker
yeah Ranji, um one of the first colour people to play Test Cricket as as well. um and So there's a broader significance from from this shot. You touch on exactly what I was going to say. i mean, it all comes together at the same time.
00:36:40
Speaker
Ranji, very stylish. um And he basically invents these two shots. And when you add the Belden photographs from the time, it just looks so beautiful.
00:36:54
Speaker
And the photographs... probably catapulted the shot into the public eye as well and then you have Fry and Ranji himself describing the shots themselves through their very yeah verbose writing it all sort of propels it into the future.
00:37:12
Speaker
um But it's interesting it's interesting when Randy describes it in Jubilee Book of Cricket, he's he does it in a pragmatic way, actually. He says, this shot may look beautiful, but I'm only i'm doing it to score runs, basically.
00:37:22
Speaker
Yeah. So utilitarian... um Yeah, it's driven by utilitarian reasons, even though it looks so fantastic. And, you know, he's probably... batting that well he's battling that idea of what it means to be a batsman in the golden age because there was the received wisdom that style was more important than the number of runs and then you get this new generation led by fry and rangy who obviously just want to score runs and they happen to be very stylish but as you say he he really just wants to score runs