Empire Cricket Booklet

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BRUCE MURRAY

to express regret at the Australian decision, and to suggest that the MCC should 'extend an invitation to my Association to play cricket in England in 1909'. 74 Within SACA, concern was expressed that Bailey in fact held no official position in the Association, which 'might at any time wish to disassociate themselves' from what he was saying and doing, but in the end it was simply noted that Bailey had evidently 'signed under a misapprehension'. 75 The response of the MCC Committee to the Australian cables and Bailey's letter was to summon a meeting of the ACCC for 3 July to consider the Australian response and 'the position generally', with the MCC representatives being instructed to convey 'that a visit from the Australian XI in 1909 should not be refused because they have declined to take part in a triangular contest; but MCC wd. prefer to see the proposed triangular contest carried out'. Wynyard was present to put the South African case, and he assured the county representatives that the tournament was only intended as an experiment and 'repudiated the idea that there had been anything underhand in the action taken by the South Africans'. The counties subsequently dug in their heels and declined to accept the Australians - or for that matter the South Africans - on their own, resolving on the motion of C. B. Fry that 'the MCC be asked to impress on the Australian board of control that the counties are so strongly in favour of the triangular contest that the MCC would not be in a position to invite any colonial eleven in 1909 except for that purpose'. 76 The action of the ACCC elicited two highly critical letters to The Times. In the first letter, described by Bowen as 'masterful', F. Stanley Jackson, the former England captain, pointed out that as the Australians had been due to tour England alone in 1909 it had generally been assumed that the adoption of the tournament 'depended entirely on whether or not the Australians would be prepared to take part'. The Australians had now given their answer, and whatever their reasons it was 'needlessly curt, not to say ungenerous' for them to be 'peremptorily told that they must either join the tournament or stay at home'. The second letter, from Dr Leslie Poidevin, the Australian Board's official representative in England,

might be sent'. However, as Wynyard advised SACA, 'the MCC and the authorities at home did not appear anxious at present to create an Imperial Board of Control'. Bailey's response to this particular advice was adamant. At a meeting of SACA on 2 March 1908, which he again attended, he 'urged the Association to press for the creation of the Imperial Board of Control as soon as possible'. He also announced that he intended to present a Challenge Cup for the Imperial Triangular Tournament, which he would hand over to the Imperial Board as soon as it was created. SACA duly instructed Wynyard 'to urge the formation' of an Imperial Board, 'by all means within his power'. 69 In the event, what materialised in 1909 was not the triangular tournament but the new board, in the form of the Imperial Cricket Conference. Under the scheme devised by Wynyard, and adopted by the MCC, for a triangular tournament in 1909, England, Australia and South Africa were to play three three-day Tests against one another, and each visiting team was also to play all the first-class counties. 70 This ensured the continued support of the counties for the scheme, enabling the MCC to proceed in April 1908 to dispatch cables to both Australia and South Africa inviting them to send 'representative teams' to England in 1909 to take part in an 'Imperial Cricket Contest'.7 1 While SACA accepted immediately, the Australian Board of Control for International Cricket refused to have anything to do with the scheme. The Australians were already scheduled to tour England in 1909, and they were not about to see the upstart South Africans gatecrash their tour, share their Test takings and, more ominously, threaten the primacy of the Ashes. There was also the strong sense in Australia that the South Africans owed them a visit, and until that tour had been undertaken it would be unfair to place the 'Africans' on the same footing as themselves. 72 At its meeting on 28 May 1908, the Australian Board consequently 'unanimously resolved that a cable be sent to Marylebone stating that Australia declined', and to follow this up with another cable 'asking if the club were prepared to receive Australia as sole visitors'. 73 In an extraordinary letter, which he signed as SACA president and which was published in the Sportsman, Bailey thereupon wrote to the MCC