Clarke’s triple century latest landmark in glorious history of Sydney Test matches

SYDNEY Cricket Ground reached a milestone last week when it staged its 100th Test match.

The game between Australia and India was marked by a majestic innings by Michael Clarke, whose unbeaten 329 was the highest at the venue in Test cricket.

It was all a far cry from the first Test at the ground in 1882.

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The match between Australia and England resulted in a five-wicket victory for the home side and featured no fewer than four Yorkshiremen in the visitors’ ranks.

The Yorkshire quartet was George Ulyett, Billy Bates, Tom Emmett and Ted Peate.

Prominent players in the pre-Golden Age, they were important members of the squad taken Down Under by James Lillywhite, Alfred Shaw and Arthur Shrewsbury.

The 1881-82 tour, which featured four fixtures against a full Australian side that only later came to be regarded as Test matches, was the third time England had visited Australia.

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It represented the fourth of five “series” between the countries which pre-dated the Ashes and resulted in a 2-0 victory for Billy Murdoch’s Australia, who followed success in Sydney’s inaugural Test with a six-wicket win at the same venue a fortnight later.

Two of the four Yorkshiremen made significant contributions in Sydney’s first Test, played between February 17-21, 1882.

The first to make an impression was Ulyett, a right-hand batsman and fast round-arm bowler who played 537 first-class games for Yorkshire and England between 1873 and 1893.

Born at Pitsmoor, Sheffield, in 1851, Ulyett opened the batting and contributed the third-highest score of 25 as England made 133 in their first innings.

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He then returned figures of 22.2-16-11-2 as Australia followed up with 197 in a game that featured four-ball overs.

Ulyett was in splendid form in the second innings, top-scoring with 67 out of 232 to leave Australia wanting 169 for victory.

This they achieved thanks to Murdoch’s 49 and despite Ulyett capturing England’s best figures of 2-48.

The other Yorkshireman who found Sydney to his liking was Bates, a right-hand batsman and off-break bowler who played 299 first-class games for Yorkshire and England between 1877-1887.

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Although he failed in both innings with the bat, Bates returned England’s best figures in the first innings - 72-43-52-4.

He followed up with 24-11-37-1 in a match in which the ball held sway.

Despite the helpful conditions for bowlers, Emmett and Peate were not so successful.

Emmett, a left-arm fast bowler who captured 1,572 first-class wickets during a 20-year career from 1866, went wicketless, while Peate, the most famous slow bowler of his day, managed only one victim – although did return parsimonious first innings figures of 52-28-53-1.

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England’s star was undoubtedly Ulyett, who was afterwards presented with a Maltese cross set with diamonds in recognition of his all-round display.

Ulyett, who also played in the very first Test match at Melbourne in 1877, was one of several England players on duty at Sydney who met with a tragic, untimely end.

He died, aged 46, from an acute attack of pneumonia, contracted at Bramall Lane, Sheffield, during a game against Kent.

In fact, only three members of the England team made it past the age of 50 – Dick Barlow (68), Shaw (64) and Emmett (62).

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Bates, born at Lascelles Hall, Huddersfield, in 1855, died at the age of 44 after contracting a cold while attending the funeral of fellow Yorkshire player John Thewlis.

His health had deteriorated rapidly and his death followed a period of depression during which he attempted suicide.

Bates’s mental problems were attributed to his enforced retirement from the game; while bowling in the nets in Australia in 1887-88, he was struck in the face by a straight drive that damaged his eyesight so badly he was unable to play first-class cricket again.

Peate, who hailed from Holbeck in Leeds, was another who succumbed to pneumonia – just nine days after his 45th birthday.

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His health had been in decline for some time and Wisden observed, with trademark tact, “it may fairly be said that he would have lasted longer if he had ordered his life more carefully”.

Of the other England players on duty at Sydney, the Nottinghamshire batsmen Shrewsbury and William Scotton committed suicide aged 47 and 37 respectively.

Shrewsbury turned a gun on himself at his sister’s house after erroneously believing he had an incurable disease, while Scotton slashed his own throat at his lodgings near Lord’s.

Billy Midwinter, a Gloucestershire all-rounder who represented England at Sydney but also played Test cricket for Australia, was another who died in tragic circumstances, aged 39, in a mental asylum in Melbourne. He went insane following the death of his wife and two children. Finally, Dick Pilling, a Lancashire batsman/wicketkeeper, passed away aged 35 following prolonged poor health. It was said his demise was triggered by complications arising from sunstroke.