The has-beens and never will-bes

Abstract

The Australian team that toured India in 1935/36 comprised atypical cricket personnel. Their cultural and social unorthodoxy contributed to the tour being shunned by cricket officialdom in Australia. Tour manager, Frank Tarrant’s method of team selection was meritocratic unlike that of customary cricket practice where social and cultural hierarchy informed team composition. This article outlines the unorthodox team composition and argues that the official cricket body objected to the exercise because of the professional nature of the tour, social (particularly class) discrimination and preconceptions of racial prejudices. The Maharaja of Patiala’s generous financing of the tour identified it as a definitively professional exercise and encouraged participation considering the precarious status of the global economy following the Great Depression. The goodwill between Australia and India evidenced on tour challenged cricket protocol and reflects a pragmatic and growing recognition that diplomatic and economic unity was desirable in light of the imminent dissolution of the British Empire.

Notes

1. The Centenary Test was played at the Melbourne Cricket Ground to celebrate 100 years of Test encounters between Australia and England.

2. Docker observes that the inclusion of Bill was an accident and that Tarrant intended to include H. O Rock in his place (1976, 96). Bill’s identity caused confusion and the August edition of Indian Cricket, located in the Leather archive, refers to him as ‘Menderbill’.

3. The fifth lowest (best) in Australian Test history to date.

4. The Imperial Cricket Conference was the official governing body of cricket. In 1965 it became known as the International Cricket Conference and in 1989 was renamed and rebranded as the International Cricket Council (ICC).

5. Unfortunately the Indian tour to Britain proved to be disastrous, on and off the field. Communal disharmony, team disunity, malcontent and personality clashes erupted and frequently marred the series. Rajender Amarnath, son of the Indian cricketer Lala Amarnath, suggests that the Indian tour manager [British] Mayor Britton Jones instigated intercommunal dissent knowing that the failure of the tour may function to justify delaying Indian independence (2004, 43). Amarnath concludes that his father was the political ‘sacrificial lamb’.

6. Despite the impending inevitability of Indian sovereignty in the early-twentieth century, Indian independence and partition took place in a disorganized, harried and chaotic fashion. It is impossible to speculate whether the disorder of the Test series in 1936 had any impact on ensuing political events.

7. The forewords of Coward’s publication are unpaginated.

8. In 2012, Indian cricket superstar Sachin Tendulkar was awarded an Order of Australia by the then Prime Minister Julia Gillard. In 2014, the new Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Australia and was the first Indian head of state to do so for twenty-eight years. A visit to the Melbourne Cricket Club and meeting Australian cricket stars was on the agenda to cement cricket as a connecting force.

9. ‘Monkeygate’ was the name attributed to ongoing racial conflict and personal animosity between Australian Andrew Symonds, who has West Indian heritage, and Harbhajan Singh of India in 2007/08.

10. Macartney toured with the official Australian Test team in 1909, 1912, 1921, and 1926. In 1910 and 1924 he toured New Zealand (prior to its entry to the ICC) and was part of a team that toured America and Canada in 1913. Macartney previously encountered the East in Ceylon in 1926 and Malaya the following year.

11. Johnny Mullagh was the leading player of the Australian team in the 1868 tour of England.

12. Evidently team blazers and caps were manufactured however the players did not receive them until early to mid-December. Coward refers to the ‘striking blue blazers replete with gold buttons and royal monogram’ (1990, 103) and Oxenham mentions the ‘gold braid’ and ‘the best material it is possible to buy’ (Telegraph 16 December 1935). However only a few photographs exist with the team wearing the blazers, revealing that they preferred informality. By comparison the Indian cricketers are rarely photographed without a team blazer.

13. Allsopp had already played Sheffield Shield cricket so it is surprising he did not wear the New South Wales blazer.

14. Macartney played his last Test in 1926 and his last Sheffield Shield season was 1926/27. Is it interesting to contemplate why he joined the Indian tour after almost a decade of retirement from cricket, most likely financial remuneration encouraged participation.

15. Possibly Leather’s observation that the exercise was ‘approved’ is partially ironic considering the lack of compliance by the Board to facilitate the tour.

16. The article, fuelled with Australian nationalism, proudly cites the tour involving the English team as being least important.