by Nigel Percy

Created on: July 08, 2009

Imagine, if you will, a time of affluence and certainty, when everyone knew their place and the world was orderly and England ruled a vast empire. A time when Englishmen spread civilization, knowledge, government and the values of an older, wiser people to the world.

Now imagine you're Australian. Proud, independent, aware of your country's origins and ready and willing to look down on those who sent your grandparents there, yet grateful they did, because it meant that you didn't live in England's rigid society anymore. You were free to be yourself because your forebears had been rejected by their own country.

I think you'll agree that such a situation gives rise to the possibility for tension, for challenge and for asserting independence.

Ah! But it is not a time to express that tension in anything so un-gentlemanly as war. Nothing as vulgar as that. But sport? Now that was a different matter. England was the home of an old, strange and complicated game called cricket. She had spread this indecipherable pastime to wherever it might take root in the empire. But there was an unspoken understanding that wherever it was played, the colonial players were always of lesser stature than the home-grown versions. After all, the traditions of the game dictated that it was in the blood of Englishmen to win at cricket. They had invented it, after all. To win was theirs by Divine Right almost. Anything else was, quite simply, unthinkable.

Prior to 1882, there had been a few skirmishes in a war which was not a war. England had always been the victor. The universe was following its proper course.

Came the fateful year, however, and Englishmen were to find out that perhaps the universe was not always run for their benefit.

In that year, a single Test match, so-called because these contests formed a test of each side's abilities, was played in England at a ground in London called the Oval.

It was a low-scoring game and England had, as a result, a target which seemed eminently reachable in order to demonstrate their natural superiority. The crowd was really only there to ensure that the rituals were properly observed.

However, the unthinkable occurred! The natural order of things was overthrown and the colonists won. The margin of victory was incredibly narrow; one of the narrowest ever, in fact. But it seemed mountainous to those present.

So unaccustomed and overwhelming was the sense of despair and defeat that, not long after, an obituary notice appeared in a sporting magazine. The

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>