Controversies in 1894

4 incidents documented

Sydney 1894 — England Win After Following On for the First Time

Australia v England

1894-12-20

On 20 December 1894, with Australia 113 for 2 chasing 177 and the match seemingly won, overnight rain and a hot Sydney sun turned the SCG into a sticky. Bobby Peel — pulled from a hangover by his captain Andrew Stoddart — took 6 for 67 and England won by 10 runs. It was the first time in Test history a side had won after following on, after Australia's first-innings 586 had piled up against an England 325. Wisden called it 'probably the most sensational match ever played either in Australia or in England.'

#ashes#1894#sydney

⭐Moderate

Stoddart's 173 at Melbourne — 'The Century of My Career', 1894-95

Australia v England

1894-12-29

Days after the Sydney follow-on miracle, England captain Andrew Stoddart played the innings he later called 'the century of my career' — 173 from 297 minutes at the MCG, taking England 2-0 up in the 1894-95 Ashes. The score remained the highest by an England captain in Australia until Mike Denness passed it 80 years later in 1974-75. Stoddart's tour was the high tide of his cricketing life.

#andrew-stoddart#1894#melbourne

⭐Serious

Lord Hawke's Winter Pay — How Yorkshire's Captain Reformed the Lot of the Professional Cricketer, 1890s

Yorkshire

1894-12-01

Lord Hawke captained Yorkshire from 1883 to 1910, taking the side from a hard-drinking ungovernable team to four County Championships in the 1890s. His most enduring change had nothing to do with on-field tactics: he introduced winter pay for professionals (who until then earned only during the summer), made benefit money trustee-managed for long-term security, and dismissed players he felt failed in their conduct. Bobby Peel's 1897 sacking was the most famous case.

#lord-hawke#yorkshire#professional-cricket

⭐Moderate

C.B. Fry Arrives — Oxford Captain, Long-Jump Record-Holder, Sussex Debutant, 1894

Oxford University, Sussex

1894-05-21

Charles Burgess Fry was 22 in 1894, an Oxford undergraduate who had broken the British long-jump record (23 feet 5 inches in 1892) and equalled the world record (23 feet 6½ inches on 4 March 1893). He was elected Oxford cricket captain for 1894 and made his first-class Sussex debut the same summer, beginning a partnership with Ranjitsinhji that would dominate English batting for fifteen years and produce a man often cited as the greatest all-round Englishman of his era.

#cb-fry#1894#oxford