Two weeks after marrying Agnes Day in October 1873, W.G. Grace took her on his honeymoon by sailing to Australia at the head of a private cricket tour. He was paid £1,500 — the equivalent of well over £100,000 today — for what was effectively a privately organised England side. The tour played 15 matches across Australia and laid the groundwork for the Test era that followed three years later.
Grace married Agnes Nicholls Day on 9 October 1873. The tour party sailed two weeks later from London.
Grace was 25 and recently married. The promoters of the tour — a syndicate of Melbourne sportsmen — agreed to pay him £1,500 plus expenses, with smaller sums for his amateur teammates and weekly wages for the professionals (W. McIntyre, Andrew Greenwood, James Lillywhite, James Southerton and Martin McIntyre). Agnes accompanied her husband. The party sailed in October 1873 and arrived in Melbourne in November. They played fifteen matches against odds — local sides of fifteen, eighteen or twenty-two players — and won 10, drew 3 and lost 2. Grace himself scored 711 runs at 30 across the tour and took 89 wickets. The financial arrangement — fees vastly larger for the captain than for the professionals — caused some grumbling on the boat home, and Lillywhite would later run his 1876-77 tour explicitly without amateurs. Agnes returned home six months pregnant; their son Bertie was born in July 1874.
Grace marries Agnes 9 Oct 1873
Sails for Australia mid-October 1873
Arrives Melbourne November 1873
Plays fifteen matches against odds — wins 10, draws 3, loses 2
Returns to England May 1874 with Agnes 6 months pregnant
9 Oct 1873
Grace marries Agnes Day
Late Oct 1873
Tour party sails for Australia
Nov 1873-Apr 1874
15 matches against odds across Australia
May 1874
Tour returns; Agnes 6 months pregnant
Jul 1874
Son Bertie born
“It was a curious notion of a wedding tour, but my husband would not be parted from cricket.”
Grace's son Bertie was born in July 1874. The tour's success encouraged Lillywhite to organise the all-professional 1876-77 trip that produced the first Test. Grace himself did not return to Australia until the 1891-92 tour as Sheffield's guest.
The most remarkable honeymoon in cricket history. Grace banked £1,500, played 15 matches, got Agnes safely home pregnant, and left Australian cricket considerably better organised.
Zimbabwe vs England
1996-12-22
The first Test between Zimbabwe and England at Bulawayo in December 1996 ended in a draw with the scores level — the first ever in Test history. Coach David 'Bumble' Lloyd, frustrated by Zimbabwe's defensive tactics, told a press conference 'we flippin' murdered em'. He was reprimanded by the ECB.
England vs Australia
4 August 1975
On 4 August 1975, during the second Ashes Test at Lord's, a 24-year-old merchant seaman from Liverpool named Michael Angelow leapt the boundary fence wearing only socks and trainers, hurdled both sets of stumps to the amusement of the players, and was wrestled to the ground by police. He had taken a £20 bet from his shipmates. He was fined £20 in court the next morning, and the BBC commentary by John Arlott — "we have got a freaker, not very shapely, and it is masculine — and I would think it has seen the last of its cricket for the day" — became one of the most replayed pieces of cricket commentary of the decade.
Australia
1981-12-12
Australian captain Greg Chappell, the most prolific batsman in the country, made four ducks in a row across Tests and ODIs during the 1981-82 home summer — and seven ducks across the season — earning the temporary nickname 'Chappello'.