Pakistan and Australia revive ‘neutral’ Test cricket at Lord’s
Earlier this year, the MCC made the decision to redecorate the away dressing room at Lord’s with the addition of new honours boards recognising the achievements of players in neutral Tests at the ground.
It was a move that meant a full 98 years after Australia batsmen http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Warren-Bardsley-c96221 made Test tons at the home of cricket, their names finally take their rightful place alongside some of the cricketing greats who have achieved the same feat at the ground.
The difference is that Kellaway and Bardsley weren’t playing against England when they notched scores of 102 and 164 respectively. Instead, the pair were part of an Australia team that in 1912 played South Africa in a rare neutral Test match at Lord’s.
So rare, in fact, that between 1912 and http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Pakistan-c755 and Australia taking to the field in the current Test at the ground, every Test played at the venue had been played between England and a visiting opponent.
But while the difficult circumstances that see Pakistan “hosting” Australia for two Tests in England in 2010 – the threat of terrorism in their own country is simply too large for teams to tour there for the foreseeable future – in 1912, things were different.
Back then, Australia, England and http://www.senore.com/Cricket/South-Africa-c757 were the world’s only Test-playing nations, and they’d all gathered in Blighty to play a triangular tournament of nine Tests, which was ultimately won by the hosts but by its nature included three matches played between Australia and South Africa on neutral soil, one of which was played at Lord’s.
Australia won that match by 10 wickets, but the series itself was widely deemed a failure for reasons as wide ranging as an unseasonably wet summer and disputes within the http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Victor-Trumper-c95155 refusing to tour.
The upshot was that the theoretically bright idea of tri-series cricket was shelved until the advent of ODI cricket in the 1970s, and almost a century without a ‘neutral’ Test in England until the two Test series between Australia and Pakistan this summer.
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