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An English
cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...
team managed by Major R. G. Warton toured South Africa from December 1888 to March 1889. Warton was a retired
British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gur ...
officer who had served on the general staff in Cape Town and was a member of the Western Province Cricket Club. He had been invited by local enthusiasts to bring a team of English first-class cricketers to the country. He negotiated with local agents called Billy Simkins and William Milton, who obtained sponsorship from Sir
Donald Currie Sir Donald Currie (17 September 182513 April 1909) was a Scottish shipowner, politician and philanthropist. Early life and career He was born at Greenock, Renfrewshire, on 17 September 1825, the third son of ten children of James Currie (1797 ...
, founder of the Castle Shipping Line. They made all the arrangements while Warton travelled to England and recruited players for the team which, at the time, was known as R. G. Warton's XI. The team was captained by
C. Aubrey Smith Sir Charles Aubrey Smith (21 July 1863 – 20 December 1948) was an English Test cricketer who became a stage and film actor, acquiring a niche as the officer-and-gentleman type, as in the first sound version of ''The Prisoner of Zenda'' (1937) ...
and included five players with prior international experience in
Bobby Abel Robert Abel (30 November 1857 – 10 December 1936), nicknamed "The Guv'nor", was a Surrey and England opening batsman who was one of the most prolific run-getters in the early years of the County Championship. He was the first England player ...
, Johnny Briggs,
Maurice Read John Maurice Read (9 February 1859 – 17 February 1929 in Winchester, Hampshire) was an English professional cricketer. Harry Altham wrote of him in ''A History of Cricket'', "Maurice Read had been recognised as a dashing player up to Test mat ...
,
George Ulyett George Ulyett (21 October 1851 – 18 June 1898) was an English cricketer, noted particularly for his very aggressive batsmanship. A well-liked man (who, in later years, kept a pub in his native Sheffield), Ulyett was popularly known as "Happy ...
and Harry Wood. Some of the other players, making up the numbers, did not have first-class status and
Harry Altham Harry Surtees Altham (30 November 1888 – 11 March 1965) was an English cricketer who became an important figure in the game as an administrator, historian and coach. His '' Wisden'' obituary described him as "among the best known personalitie ...
described the team's standard as "about that of a weak county". Two of their matches were against a team representative of all South Africa and, in 1897, it was officially decided that these should retrospectively be assigned Test match status. As such, the first is South Africa's inaugural Test and, given that there had been no first-class cricket in the country before 1889, it is the inaugural first-class match played in South Africa. The term "test cricket" (in the sense of a test of team strength) was new in 1889 and was first used by '' Wisden Cricketers' Almanack'' in that year's edition. Allocation of retrospective status was bound to be controversial and, in
Rowland Bowen Major Rowland Francis Bowen (27 February 1916 – 4 September 1978) was a British Army officer and a cricket researcher, historian and writer. Educated at Westminster School, Bowen received an emergency commission in April 1942 into the In ...
's history, he argued that standards in South Africa were so poor that the two matches should not have been rated first-class, let alone Test. As he pointed out, South Africa's tour of England in 1894 was not first-class. Furthermore, when M. W. Luckin wrote the first history of South African cricket in 1914, he considered the 1889 matches to be minor.


Tour summary

Warton's XI played a total of twenty matches but only the two retrospective Tests are recognised as first-class. This is because 17 of the games were played against odds, the home team in each case fielding from 15 to 22 players against eleven on the English team. Although the final match on the tour was 11-a-side against South Africa, it was a two-day filler (a first-class match must be scheduled for at least three days). Many of the matches were played on matting as, with rudimentary pitch preparation, surfaces were uneven; they tended to be grassy in coastal areas and hard soli in the interior. Warton's XI met sides from four of the South African provinces: Eastern Province, Natal,
Transvaal Transvaal is a historical geographic term associated with land north of (''i.e.'', beyond) the Vaal River in South Africa. A number of states and administrative divisions have carried the name Transvaal. * South African Republic (1856–1902; af, ...
and Western Province. They also played teams representing the cities of Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg, Kimberley,
Pietermaritzburg Pietermaritzburg (; Zulu: umGungundlovu) is the capital and second-largest city in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It was founded in 1838 and is currently governed by the Msunduzi Local Municipality. Its Zulu name umGungundlovu ...
and Port Elizabeth. Even playing against odds, the English team were expected to win all the provincial and city matches but they had four surprising defeats in their first six matches against Cape Town, Kimberley (twice) and Port Elizabeth. They nevertheless won the two Test matches convincingly. The tour was successful in legacy terms as it brought South Africa into international cricket and provided a stimulus for their domestic game. Sir Donald Currie as sponsor was so impressed that he decided to donate the trophy named after him, the Currie Cup, as the prize for winning South Africa's domestic championship. For the 1888–89 season, the English team were asked to award it to the team which had excelled most against them. They chose Kimberley. In 1889–90, the competition proper began with a challenge by Transvaal to Kimberley. A shorter-term benefit for South Africa was that
Frank Hearne Frank Hearne (23 November 1858 – 14 July 1949) was an English born cricketer. One of the few men to play Test cricket for more than one country, he played for both England and South Africa. He was a member of the Hearne family of cricketers ...
decided to emigrate to the country, mainly for health reasons, and became a successful coach as well as representing South Africa in Test matches in the 1890s. Financially, the tour was not a success as it failed to make a profit and ''Wisden'' noted that "it was never intended, or considered necessary, to take out a representative English team for a first trip to the Cape".


English squad

Warton's XI consisted of fifteen players who were something of a mixed bag given that George Ulyett had already played in 22 Tests against Australia whereas, at the other extreme, six of the players were not registered with any county club. Bobby Abel, Johnny Briggs, Maurice Read and Harry Wood had played Test cricket against Australia. Monty Bowden, Arnold Fothergill, Frank Hearne and Aubrey Smith were established county players. Cameron Skinner was a comedian who accompanied the party to provide entertainment but nevertheless took part in four of the odds matches. He never played in a first-class match. Neither did Major Warton himself; he played in the final (fill-up) match only on the tour. James Roberts, another occasional player, took part in the first odds match but then had to return home owing to the death of his father and Ulyett was contracted to replace him. Roberts made a single first-class appearance for
Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a historic county in southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the ceremonial county of Greater London, with small sections in neighbouri ...
in 1892. Charles Coventry, Basil Grieve and Emile McMaster all played against South Africa and so are officially credited as Test players despite never playing in any other first-class matches. Coventry was a career soldier who did play for Worcestershire, then a
minor county The National Counties, known as the Minor Counties before 2020, are the cricketing counties of England and Wales that do not have first-class status. The game is administered by the National Counties Cricket Association (NCCA), which comes und ...
, in 1886 and for some local or itinerant teams. Grieve and McMaster were former Harrow School pupils who both played for the school team in the 1870s. There is no record of McMaster ever playing for any other team except Warton's XI. In 1892, Grieve played in minor cricket for a team called the Ne'er-do-wells. Squad details below state the player's age at the beginning of the tour, his batting hand, his type of bowling, and his County Championship team at the time:


South African selections

South Africa selected a total of fourteen players for the two matches, all of whom were making not only their Test match debuts but also their first-class debuts. Domestic first-class cricket began in South Africa in the 1889–90 season but none of these players went on to have extensive first-class careers. The greatest number of first-class matches played was eleven by Bernard Tancred, who was a cousin of wicket-keeper Fred Smith. Gus Kempis played in five matches for Natal between 27 December 1889 and 9 January 1890, but he died in Mozambique four months later, aged 24. Only three players (Milton, Smith and Vintcent) played for South Africa again after this season and they totalled three appearances each in their respective Test careers. Milton and Vintcent both played against England in 1891–92. Smith, who played against Lord Hawke's touring team in 1895–96 had the longest Test career span. The details for each player below state his age at the beginning of the English tour, his batting hand, his type of bowling, and his provincial team at the time:


Test matches


First Test

At the time, the match was billed as Major Warton's XI ''versus'' a South African XI. It was retrospectively given Test match status and renamed South Africa v England. Played on a green matting wicket in Port Elizabeth, South African captain
Owen Dunell Owen Robert Dunell (15 July 1856 – 21 October 1929) was a South African cricketer who captained his country in its first Test match in 1888/89, as well as an early association footballer who played for Oxford University at the 1877 FA Cup F ...
won the toss against Aubrey Smith and chose to bat. The game did not last long as the matting wicket did not induce high scores. Around 3,000 spectators attended the first day's play. ''Wisden'' commented on a good all-round performance by the Englishmen with special mentions for Abel and Smith.


Second Test

Although South Africa was a very weak team, the performance by Johnny Briggs who took fifteen wickets for 28 runs in the match was exceptional. Abel made his third century of the tour. Bowden became England's youngest ever Test captain, aged 23 years 144 days. He replaced Smith who had developed a fever. Tancred became the first batsman to
carry his bat In cricket, the term carry the bat (or carry one's bat) refers to an opening batsman (no. 1 and 2) who is not dismissed ("not out") when the team innings is closed. The term is mainly used when the innings closes after all 10 wickets have falle ...
in a Test match in scoring 26
not out In cricket, a batter is not out if they come out to bat in an innings and have not been dismissed by the end of an innings. The batter is also ''not out'' while their innings is still in progress. Occurrence At least one batter is not out at th ...
. South Africa were obliged to follow on, but were again quickly dismissed. Briggs' second innings wickets were all bowled.


References


Further reading

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:English cricket team in South Africa in 1888-89 1889 in English cricket 1889 in South African cricket 1888-89 International cricket competitions from 1888–89 to 1918 South African cricket seasons from 1888–89 to 1917–18