Wisden 1880-1899

1880 – 1889

Test Cricket was introduced in the 1880 issue with coverage of Lord Harris’s team, which toured the Antipodes in 1878-79. The four tours that preceded it received sparse treatment from Wisden with little more than the recording of the names of the players who made up the parties. This decade changes all that. Harris’s tour took up 13 pages including letters from his lordship and the New South Wales Cricket Association relating to the fracas, which occurred when the two teams met in Sydney.

They are a ‘must read’ for any cricket buff. During this tour the third test between England and Australia was played in Melbourne. Throughout the decade, tours between the two countries took place almost every year with both countries visiting each other’s shores. Twenty-seven Tests were played in ten separate series. The most significant being the Hon. Ivo Bligh’s team tour in 1882-83, it induced the fabled Ashes. Another interesting Test was the first on English soil -  played at the Oval in 1880 where approximately forty thousand people turned up on the first two days play of a match won by the home side and in whic