First Lord’s Test Match
St Johns Wood, London The 21st of July 1884 AD
Although Lord’s as home of the MCC is called the home of cricket , until 1884 The Oval had been the venue used for test matches in England; in fact Old Trafford by staging the first test in 1884 beat Lord’s to the punch.
Things were very different in 1884, not least in that England beat Australia at Lord’s, a decidedly rare occurrence in recent years. Other major differences were that overs were of four balls rather than six; and the match was played over three days not five.
England beat the Australians by an innings and five runs, in spite of the English star batsman W.G. Grace making only 14 runs. Four men qualified for the now famed honours board at Lord’s because of their performances in the match: Edmund Peate from Leeds who became the very first to do so by taking six wickets with his slow left-arm bowling; barrister Allan Steele from Liverpool who notched up 148 in England’s score of 379; Aussie bowler Eugene Palmer whose figures were 6 – 111; and George Ulyett of Sheffield and Yorkshire, whose 7 – 36 achieved with the old-fashioned round-arm style destroyed the Aussies in their second innings.
If the Australians of that time were anything like their modern counterparts, none will have spoken to their captain William Murdoch for months afterwards – he came on as a substitute fielder for England during Australia’s first innings when Grace was injured, and took the catch that dismissed teammate and top scorer Henry Scott for 75.
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