#emergence

2 incidents tagged

Billy Murdoch — From NSW Wicketkeeper to Australia's Captain, 1878

Australia in England

1878-05-01

Billy Murdoch, a 23-year-old NSW solicitor and wicketkeeper, sailed with the first Australian touring side to England in 1878 as the team's first-choice gloveman. By the end of the season he had ceded the gloves to Jack Blackham and turned his attention exclusively to batting — a switch that would lead him to the Australian captaincy in 1880 and to many of the great Test batting innings of the next decade.

#billy-murdoch#1878#australia

⭐Moderate

W.G. Grace's 1869 Season — The Emergence of Cricket's First Superstar

Multiple

1869-09-01

In 1869, his fifth full season of first-class cricket and the year he turned 21, W.G. Grace produced batting figures that ended any debate about the leading cricketer in England. He scored 1,320 first-class runs at an average of 57.3 — at a time when totals over 200 were rare and averages over 40 were almost unknown — and turned the Gentlemen vs Players fixture, which the Players had usually dominated, into a one-man Gentlemen victory.

#wg-grace#1869#gentlemen-vs-players