England in South Africa, 1898-99

Lord Hawke got together an excellent team for his tour in South Africa last winter and had every reason to be satisfied with results, for out of the seventeen fixtures that made up the programme, the side won fifteen and left the other two unfinished, playing from the 24th of December to the 4th of April without once suffering defeat. It is true that they were beaten at Matjesfontein and also at Cape Town by eighteen of the Combined Colleges, but these were scratch games - the one at Matjesfontein, especially, being played in a most lax way - and were never intended to be regarded as properly belonging to the tour. Inasmuch, as only five eleven-aside matches were played, the trip was not one of great interest to the cricket public at home, but it was in every way successful, the players enjoying themselves thoroughly. The five eleven-aside matches comprised two against South Africa, two against an eleven of Cape Colony, and one against an eleven of the Transvaal, the Englishmen winning them all. Consistently good batting had much to do with the success of the trip, but the special strength of the side clearly lay in the bowling of Albert Trott and Haigh. Between them these two players took 275 wickets. Haigh had rather the better average of the two, but he was not called upon to do nearly as much work and only obtained 107 wickets against Trott's 168. Still, the Yorkshireman bowled uncommonly well, and was quite invaluable to the side. Trott, as a bowler, earned golden opinions wherever he went, and was endless in resource. Among the batsmen, P.F. Warner and F. Mitchell, had a hard race for first place. Both showed fine cricket, though Warner, after starting well had a long spell of small scores. Tyldesley, who might have been expected to beat them both, was on the whole not at his best, but for all that he played two beautiful innings of over a hundred. Cuttell did good work both as a batsman and bowler, but it can scarcely be said that he added to his reputation. Lord Hawke was a very popular captain, but he could get no runs on the matting wickets. While all the other members of the team returned to England, F.W. Milligan stayed behind.

Match reports for

1st Test: South Africa v England at Johannesburg, Feb 14-16, 1899
Report | Scorecard

2nd Test: South Africa v England at Cape Town, Apr 1-4, 1899
Report | Scorecard