Australian cricket team in England in 1888

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The Australian cricket team in England in 1888 played 37 first-class matches including 3 Tests.

England won the Test series 2-1 after losing the first match:

[ 1st Test] (Lord's Cricket Ground) – Australia won by 61 runs
[ 2nd Test] (The Oval) – England won by an innings and 137 runs
[ 3rd Test] (Old Trafford Cricket Ground) – England won by an innings and 21 runs

[edit] First Test, 16-17 July: England v Australia

Australia won the toss and batted first, putting together a total of 116 in its 71.2 overs. Opening batsman Percy McDonnell, wicketkeeper Jack Blackham and Test debutant Jack Edwards were the only men to get into the twenties as George Lohmann (two), Bobby Peel (four), Johnny Briggs (three) and Allan Steel (one) ran through their batting line-up. At the close of play on the opening day, England was eighteen for three, with Bobby Abel, Billy Barnes and nightwatchman George Lohmann all back in the hut.

Resuming at 11.30 on day two, the score was lifted to 22, on which score England lost Walter Read, W.G. Grace (faling to add to his overnight ten), and Tim O'Brien. When Steel fell four runs later, England was seven down and eleven runs short of avoiding the follow-on. Thanks to Briggs, who top-scored with seventeen, and Peel (eight), the hosts managed to reach an all-out total of 53 from exactly fifty overs, after 55 minutes of play on this second day. That famous combination of J.J. Ferris and "The Terror" Turner took eight of the wickets to fall, Turner picking up a five-for.

When Ferris and Turner arrived at the wicket in Australia's second innings, they found their side on eighteen for seven, with Lohmann and Peel demolishing the top- and middle-order. Turner scored a dozen and Ferris twelve, but the Daily Telegraph remarked that "it has to be said that never in the annals of cricket has such a fortunate innings as that of Ferris been compiled".

England needed 124 to win, but it managed to get only halfway. Of the home team's second innings of 62, Grace scored 24, "far and away the best batting display of the match," said the Daily Telegraph. Allan Steel, the captain, also chipped in with an unbeaten ten, but he was the only other batsman to reach double figures. Turner and Ferris claimed five wickets each, making for match figures of ten for 63 and eight for 45 respectively. The aforementioned newspaper, however, believed that Peel's first innings' four for 36 was a far better performance, as the wicket had been easier then than at any other stage of the match.

This win was Australia's first over England since that at Sydney three years earlier. After that, the Antipodeans had been defeated on seven successive occasions. In the eight years since the 1880 visit, this was only Australia's second win in England, the other being the famous Test at the Oval in 1882.