The myths of cricket origins
Related Categories: Journalism, Tom Holland Posts
The summer of 1912 was one of the wettest on record. Month after month, rain lashed the cricket pitches of England. Sydney Barnes, whose 69 wickets came that season at a cost of just over 11 runs each, may have enjoyed the damp conditions – but no one else much did. The cricketers of Australia and South Africa, who had been invited over to participate in an innovative triangular tournament of Test matches, had a particularly miserable time of it, dodging torrential downpours whenever they were not being skittled out by Barnes. The entire season, everyone mournfully agreed, had been an utter wash-out.
