New Zealand cricket team in England in 1927
Encyclopedia
The New Zealand cricket team
New Zealand cricket team
The New Zealand cricket team, nicknamed the Black Caps, are the national cricket team representing New Zealand. They played their first in 1930 against England in Christchurch, New Zealand, becoming the fifth country to play Test cricket. It took the team until 1955–56 to win a Test, against the...

toured England in the 1927 season. The team contained many of the players who would later play Test cricket
Test cricket
Test cricket is the longest form of the sport of cricket. Test matches are played between national representative teams with "Test status", as determined by the International Cricket Council , with four innings played between two teams of 11 players over a period of up to a maximum five days...

 for New Zealand, but the tour did not include any Test matches and the 1927 English cricket season
1927 English cricket season
Five years before Bodyline, top of the averages in the 1927 English cricket season were Douglas Jardine and Harold Larwood. The season is notable for being the last one to date in which there was no Test series, apart from the years of World War II and 1970 .-Honours:*County...

 was the last, apart from the Second World War years and the cancelled South African
South African cricket team
The South African national cricket team represent South Africa in international cricket. They are administrated by Cricket South Africa.South Africa is a full member of the International Cricket Council, also known as ICC, with Test and One Day International, or ODI, status...

 tour of 1970, in which there was no Test cricket in England.

Background

In 1926, the Imperial Cricket Conference, forerunner of the International Cricket Council
International Cricket Council
The International Cricket Council is the international governing body of cricket. It was founded as the Imperial Cricket Conference in 1909 by representatives from England, Australia and South Africa, renamed the International Cricket Conference in 1965, and took up its current name in 1989.The...

, allowed for the first time delegates from India, New Zealand and the West Indies to attend. The three were invited to organise themselves into cricket boards that could, in future, select representative teams to take part in Test matches, which had hitherto been restricted to sides from England, Australia and South Africa.

A non-Test playing visit from a side from New Zealand had already been arranged for the 1927 season, paid for by a private finance deal involving the sale of £1 shares, and it was agreed that this tour should go ahead without Test matches before a decision was taken on whether New Zealand was ready for Test cricket. In the event, the 1927 side did well enough to get an official (though scarcely full-strength) MCC
Marylebone Cricket Club
Marylebone Cricket Club is a cricket club in London founded in 1787. Its influence and longevity now witness it as a private members' club dedicated to the development of cricket. It owns, and is based at, Lord's Cricket Ground in St John's Wood, London NW8. MCC was formerly the governing body of...

 tour agreed for 1929-30, in which the first New Zealand Tests were played. And future New Zealand tours of England, from 1931 onwards, were full Test match tours.

The 1927 New Zealand team

The team was captained by Tom Lowry
Tom Lowry
Thomas Coleman Lowry was a New Zealand cricketer. He played in the first seven Test matches that New Zealand ever played, captaining the team in all of them....

, who had played first-class cricket in England for both Somerset
Somerset County Cricket Club
Somerset County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Somerset...

 and Cambridge University
Cambridge University Cricket Club
Cambridge University Cricket Club is a first-class cricket team. It now plays all but one of its first-class cricket matches as part of the Cambridge University Centre of Cricketing Excellence , which includes Anglia Ruskin University...

. In all, 17 players were used, but three of them only played once, and 10 cricketers played in 20 or more of the 26 first-class matches.

The 14 players who made up the regular side were:
  • Tom Lowry
    Tom Lowry
    Thomas Coleman Lowry was a New Zealand cricketer. He played in the first seven Test matches that New Zealand ever played, captaining the team in all of them....

     (captain)
  • Cyril Allcott
    Cyril Allcott
    Cyril Francis Walter Allcott played six Tests for New Zealand from 1930-32....

  • Ernest Bernau
    Ernest Bernau
    Ernest Henry Lovell Bernau , sometimes known as Bill Bernau,was a New Zealand cricketer who played first-class cricket from 1914–15 to 1927–28, and accompanied the New Zealand national cricket team on their tour of England in 1927.Bernau took 12 wickets in a Hawke Cup match for...

  • Roger Blunt
    Roger Blunt
    Roger Charles Blunt played nine Tests for New Zealand....

  • William Cunningham
  • Ces Dacre
    Ces Dacre
    Charles Christian Ralph Dacre, more commonly known as Ces Dacre, was a cricket player from New Zealand who also represented the New Zealand in football . He was born 15 May 1899 in Devonport, Auckland and died there on 2 November 1975...

  • Stewie Dempster
  • Matt Henderson
    Matt Henderson
    Matthew Henderson was a cricketer who played for Wellington and New Zealand.Henderson was a left-arm fast bowler and toured England with the 1927 team under Tom Lowry...

  • Kenneth James, wicketkeeper
  • Herb McGirr
    Herb McGirr
    Herbert Mendelson McGirr was a New Zealand cricketer who played in two Tests in 1930.An all-rounder who had almost 20 years of first-class cricket with Wellington, McGirr was a middle or lower order batsman who hit the ball hard and a steady medium-paced bowler...

  • Bill Merritt
  • John Mills
    John Mills (cricketer)
    John Ernest 'Jackie' Mills was a New Zealand cricketer who played in seven Tests from 1930 to 1933....

  • Charlie Oliver
    Charlie Oliver
    Charles Joshua Oliver was a New Zealand rugby union international who also represented his country in first-class cricket....

  • Curly Page
    Curly Page
    Milford Laurenson "Curly" Page was a cricketer who played for New Zealand and Canterbury. He was New Zealand's second Test captain, and captained 7 of the Tests in which he played...



The three who played just one game each were:
  • Denis Blundell
    Denis Blundell
    -Bibliography:* The Story of Bell Gully Buddle Weir by Julia Millen ISBN 1-86934-026-4-External links:* *...

    , later governor-general of New Zealand, a Cambridge undergraduate who failed to get into the university side for any first-class matches in 1927 (though he did in 1928 and 1929)
  • Ronald Fox
    Ronald Fox
    Ronald Fox may refer to:* Ronald Fox, New Zealand cricketer in 1927* A victim of the Our Lady of the Angels School Fire who died in Room 211...

    , a 47-year-old wicketkeeper whose main first-class cricket experience had been for MCC
    Marylebone Cricket Club
    Marylebone Cricket Club is a cricket club in London founded in 1787. Its influence and longevity now witness it as a private members' club dedicated to the development of cricket. It owns, and is based at, Lord's Cricket Ground in St John's Wood, London NW8. MCC was formerly the governing body of...

     on a tour of New Zealand in 1906-07 and who previous first-class match had been for MCC in 1910
  • Douglas Hay, the tour manager, aged 50, whose previous game was more than 20 years earlier, for Auckland against the MCC 1906-07 side, when he was stumped by Fox.


James was originally selected as second wicketkeeper, but made such a strong impression that he played in almost every match; only in some minor matches did Lowry deputise for James as wicketkeeper. Of the 14 regulars, only Bernau, Cunningham, Dacre and Oliver did not go on to play Test cricket; of the irregulars, Blundell came closest to Test cricket, representing New Zealand against MCC on an unofficial tour in 1935-36.

First-class matches

Matches were played against 16 of the 17 first-class
First-class cricket
First-class cricket is a class of cricket that consists of matches of three or more days' scheduled duration, that are between two sides of eleven players and are officially adjudged first-class by virtue of the standard of the competing teams...

 counties, with five won and four lost. The touring side was particularly strong in batting, and most of their victories relied on the weight of runs produced. The exception was the match against Somerset
Somerset County Cricket Club
Somerset County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Somerset...

 at Weston-super-Mare
Weston-super-Mare
Weston-super-Mare is a seaside resort, town and civil parish in the unitary authority of North Somerset, which is within the ceremonial county of Somerset, England. It is located on the Bristol Channel coast, south west of Bristol, spanning the coast between the bounding high ground of Worlebury...

 where the New Zealanders, after being dismissed for 128 in the second innings, their lowest total of the tour, won by 94 runs with Allcott taking five wickets for three runs in a feeble display by the county. The match was Arthur Wellard
Arthur Wellard
Arthur William Wellard was a cricketer who played for Somerset and England. A late starter in county cricket, having been told by his native county, Kent, that he would be better off taking up a career as a policeman, Wellard played on into his late 40s...

's first first-class appearance.

Perhaps the most exciting game was the drawn match with Surrey
Surrey County Cricket Club
Surrey County Cricket Club is one of the 18 professional county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Surrey. Its limited overs team is called the Surrey Lions...

 at The Oval
The Oval
The Kia Oval, still commonly referred to by its original name of The Oval, is an international cricket ground in Kennington, in the London Borough of Lambeth. In the past it was also sometimes called the Kennington Oval...

. In three days 1,345 runs were scored. New Zealand made 313, with 103 for Mills, and Surrey responded with 377, Jack Hobbs
Jack Hobbs
Sir John Berry "Jack" Hobbs was an English professional cricketer who played for Surrey from 1905 to 1934 and for England in 61 Test matches from 1908 to 1930....

 scoring 146. New Zealand then made a rapid 371, with Dempster making 101 and McGirr 66, and Merritt reduced Surrey to 207 for 8, taking five wickets. But an unbroken ninth wicket partnership of 77 took Surrey to within 24 of victory before the match ended.

Even that total of runs was surpassed in the match against an all-amateur MCC
Marylebone Cricket Club
Marylebone Cricket Club is a cricket club in London founded in 1787. Its influence and longevity now witness it as a private members' club dedicated to the development of cricket. It owns, and is based at, Lord's Cricket Ground in St John's Wood, London NW8. MCC was formerly the governing body of...

 side, which yielded 1,522 runs in three May days, but ended as a draw. Other first-class matches included the usual touring side games with the universities and end-of-season festival cricket. But there were also first-class matches against the Royal Navy, the Army, the Civil Service and Wales. In all 26 matches, New Zealand won seven and lost five, with the others drawn, including several affected by weather.

Other matches

The New Zealanders played 12 other matches, mostly of two-days duration, winning six of them and drawing the others. These included four games in a week in Scotland and five against Minor Counties.

Leading players

Wisden Cricketers' Almanack
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom...

 for 1928, reporting on the tour, singled out the batting for special praise. "With scarcely an exception they played an enterprising game and in most instances made their runs in a style which told of intelligent coaching," it said. Six batsmen scored more than 1,000 runs in first-class matches. The tourists' averages were led by Dempster, with 1,430 runs at 44.68 runs per innings; by aggregate, Blunt did better, with 1,540 at exactly 44 runs an innings. Lowry, Mills, Page and Dacre also passed 1,000 runs in first-class games. In all matches, Dempster and Blunt scored more than 2,000 runs each.

The bowling was less successful. Merritt, aged 19, took 107 first-class wickets with leg-breaks and googlies, and Blunt, of similar style, took 78. But no other bowler took 50 and the fast bowler Cunningham failed completely, taking just five first-class wickets on the tour as a whole. In all matches, Merritt took 169 wickets. Blunt's all-round performance earned him selection as one of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Year
Wisden Cricketers of the Year
The Wisden Cricketers of the Year are cricketers selected for the honour by the annual publication Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, based primarily on their "influence on the previous English season"...

in the 1928 annual.

James, with 42 catches and 43 stumpings in the first-class matches, was also singled out for praise by Wisden. The rest of the fielding, it said, fell below normal first-class standards.

Verdict and aftermath

MCC reported in 1928 that the tour had been a success and the following year that an MCC side would visit New Zealand in the 1929-30 season. As MCC also accepted an invitation to tour West Indies the same winter, and as several leading players excused themselves from both tours, the side that went to New Zealand was not especially strong. The representative matches played, though, were designated as the first Test matches between the two countries and the first to be played by New Zealand.

External sources

CricketArchive
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