The Australians at Edinburgh.

Marlborough Express, Volume XXXVI, Issue 226, 27 September 1902, Page 5 (Supplement)

The Australians at Edinburgh.

The visit of tbe Australian cricketers to Edinburgh was so greafc a financial success that it is stated all future teams will arrange a match in the Scottish capital. The Edinburgh people gave the visitors the warmest of welcomes, and in spite of tbe deplorable exhibition made by the local players, tbe spectators "ap plauded every stroke with marked impartiality." The Australians thoroughly enjoyed themselves, and the correspondent of the Argus with 'the team sends a most amusing account of the trip. The ground, be says, bad a hump in the middle, and tapered away like the back of a tortoise. There were only two in the Scottish team who knew much about batting, and one of these was a Victorian medical student; as for the others, stage fright, or its cricket equivalent, sealed iheir doom. They were out before they went in, because the reputation of their opponents had preceded them. They made 109 in their first innings, a Ecore that the Australians passed without losing a wicket, for if tbe Scottish batting was poor, iihe bowling was wor;e. To the critical spectator the amusement of the Australian innings was furnished by a bowler named Stevemon, who is also a crack international footballer. . " He bowled underhand lobs, and made heroic efforts, by following up bis delivery, to be in several parts of the field at the same time. To his own bowling Stevenson neided by turn at mid-on, mid-off, extra mid-rff, and c>ver-point, and once be got r umi us far as p^int, only to see Noble step back and puli it to square-leg." Such übiquity amazed the Australians. At the dinner in the evening Stevenson pleaded his long career as a footballer as an excuse for hi 3 tactics as a bowler. His first inclination, he said, was to bowl a man, and secondly to catch him ; if both plans failed, then for a moment he had a mad desire to charge into him, and get pa3t him somehow. Armstrong, at this dinner, gave the Scots some good advice " When you go in to bat to-morrow," he said, " just look on us as a club eleven or a lot of mugs ; that will give you confidence, and then you will see-what an overrated set we are." But heavy rain set in during the night", followed by bright sunshine next day, and the combined efforts of Ihe two on the ground and on the feelings of the Scottish team was such that " try as they might, the Australians could not keep their opponents' wickets up." They did what they could. They put on Clem Hill to bowl, aad even he secured two wickets in an over. "It was not Hill's first bowling success in England," remarks the correspondent, with whom geography is apparently not a strong point. " Three years ago he actually I took a wicket against Sussex-, and only last week at Bradford he bowled five overs containing three wides." In the exhibition game after the Scottish team had been defeated by |an innings and 105 runs, Darling knocked up 104 in an hour and ahalf, including 26 in one over, though the -boundaries were much deeper!

tban is usual, and Noble managed to half kill an umpire by a straight drive. But poor though the play was, the players were such good fellows and Scottish hospitality was so thoroughly in keeping with tradition, that the Australians reckoned the time well spent.