Simply not Cricket

European settlers developed a mania for ‘the gentleman’s sport’.  Dunedin boasted sixty cricket clubs, but in this Presbyterian enclave enthusiasm outweighed opportunity; local grounds were scarce,  play was forbidden on Sundays and the season was constrained by poor weather.  Consequently Dunedin teams were often obliged to play ‘away’ and so on March 1^st 1880, Dunedin’s Excelsior Club travelled thirty miles north to engage the Palmerston Club in a ‘friendly’.

The venue was not to the visitors liking.  A local farmer had moved his cattle, a pitch had been mown and cow muck raked towards the boundaries but the ground was still rutted and uneven. 

The local team, who were accustomed to playing on an irregular surface elected to bat first and gained a creditable fifty three runs. Excelsior replied with sixty four, a score that was entirely attributable to boundaries scored from the occasional straight delivery.

During elevenses, the home team trampled corrugations from the pitch while Excelsior strategized. When the home team once again resumed batting, Excelsior established an attacking field; their men gathered close enough to ridicule the batsman while the bowlers threw bouncers and deliberately rushed the delivery of overs.  The Excelsior scorekeeper maintained a constant tirade of encouragement from the sidelines and the unnerved home team were soon all out for thirty four.

Each ball of the final innings was deliberately directed towards the boundaries and by the time Excelsior were dismissed for seventy seven, the Palmerston fielders were thoroughly soiled with cow-muck. Defeated but not dispirited, the home team proceeded to congratulate their opponents!  Filthy hands were enthusiastically offered and the Excelsior players pristine backs were heartily slapped and smeared.

The scorekeeper remonstrated, so Palmerston’s captain tossed him a ball – it would have been better if he had dropped this catch – the missile had not been fashioned from leather.