Page "Sydney Riot of 1879" Paragraph 35

In 1880, an Australian side captained by Billy Murdoch toured England.

The tourists had difficulty finding good opponents ; most county sides turned them down, although Yorkshire played two unofficial matches against them.

There was a lot of bad will, exacerbated by the Australians ' arrival in England at short notice, to some extent unexpectedly.

This was heightened by an English perception that the Australians came frequently in order to maximise their profits ; at the time, professionalism was frowned upon.

In his autobiography Lord Harris wrote, " They asked no-one's goodwill in the matter, and it was felt this was a discourteous way of bursting in on our arrangements ; and the result was they played scarcely any counties and were not generally recognised ... We felt we had to make a protest against too frequent visits ".

Harris initially shunned the team and tried to avoid correspondence and meetings with them.

An attempt to arrange a game against an English XI for the Cricketers ' Fund was turned down, and public advertisements in the newspapers were shunned.

W. G.

Grace was sympathetic to the Australians and felt that they were not to blame for the riot.

He attempted to arrange a game for them at Lord's, but was rebuffed by the Marylebone Cricket Club, who gave the excuse that the ground was not available.