The ABC Tour

Martin Chandler | 9:11am BST 14 August 2022

Published: 2022
Pages: 205
Author: Walmsley, Keith
Publisher: ACS
Rating: 4 stars

The ACS has been publishing for years. Initially its output was essentially statistical in content, but that has evolved as time has passed. There have been books on a number of subjects, and in 2007 the biographical series, Lives in Cricket began, followed in 2017 by a Cricket Witness series. This year sees the start of a third series, Cricket Tours, and Keith Walmsley’s account is the first to appear. The ACS are at pains to make the point that the series is to be ‘occasional’, so I do not suppose it will get up to number 56 (the current standing of the Lives in Cricket series) in my lifetime, but we are promised a second book next year*, and I understand another is being worked on.

Given the general ACS brief, and the subject of numbers 1 and 2 in the series, I do not imagine we will be reading in later books about tours that are already the subject of full accounts. That said there seems to be no reason why, in the future, the mere fact that a tour contained Test matches would prevent consideration so, now that no one writes about contemporary series anymore, there is certainly potential for Test series to feature in the future.

But for now we begin with a tour that is, perhaps surprisingly, virtually unknown today. I express surprise because the visitors in question were a combined side from Argentina, Brazil and Chile. In 1932 the South Americans were certainly not as strong as the Philadelphians who had visited three times during the Golden Age, and they didn’t have a stand out player like Bart King, but they were still of sufficient quality for their 19 match itinerary to include six First Class matches two of which, against The Army and Sir Julien Cahn’s XI, were won.

One of the best books of 2021 was James Coyne and Tim Abraham’s Evita Burned Down Our Pavilion, a history of the game in each of the Latin American nations (except Guyana). Those fortunate and sensible enough to have read that one will already be primed with some of the background to the game in the ABC countries, although The ABC Tour goes over very little ground already covered. For those who have yet to treat themselves to Coyne and Abrahams masterpiece the advice is firstly to do so (it is now available in paperback), albeit reading that one is certainly not a pre-requisite for enjoying The ABC Tour.

Those with an interest in twentieth century history will immediately realise that 1932 was not an easy era economically, coming as it did three years into The Great Depression. The setting up, management and financing of a two month trip for a group of amateur cricketers was therefore no easy task, and the first third of the narrative is taken up with following those issues, something that Walmsley is able to do with commendable thoroughness thanks largely to contemporary press reports, particularly those in the English language newspapers published in Argentina.

Eventually a party of 15 players was assembled, ten from Argentina, three from Brazil, one from Chile and lastly the batsman who ended up heading the tour averages, Alfred Jackson, who was born and died in Chile, but in 1932 was living and playing his cricket in Argentina. The next part of the book therefore is an account of the tour and the cricket played, and again Walmsley is well served by the contemporary press coverage in South America and in addition whilst the tour was taking place the English newspapers took an interest as well.

The final part of the book itself is the reflections on events from the greater part of a century later – where did the South Americans go wrong, where did they succeed, why was the trip never repeated and what became of the game in the ABC countries? Walmsley’s conclusions are, as you would expect from the man who contributed Brief Candles and Brief Candles 2 to the Lives in Cricket series, measured, thorough and difficult to disagree with.

The book closes with a number of most useful appendices. The first, and I have to admit to having read this before I started the narrative, is a short but thorough biography of each of the tourists. That is followed by the scorecards of the matches and some notes on those, the tour statistics and some other interesting information regarding the amount of space The Times devoted to the trip, the purely social itinerary and a summary of the results of the international matches played by the ABC countries amongst themselves.

Is there anything missing? The answer to that one must, realistically, be no. But I would have been interested in a bit of very unscientific guesswork and speculation at the end. A point that is dealt with fully within the text is the one that mirrors the problems England selectors always had in days gone by with their amateurs in terms of being able to lure them away from their business and other commitments.

One of the points that The ABC Tour makes very clearly is that were at least five men unable to make the tour who would certainly have travelled with the team had they been available. It is almost inevitable that at full strength the side would have done better, but how much better? Might they have won those other four First Class matches? If so perhaps a match or two against stronger opposition could have been arranged, or even a contest with that summer’s other tourists, India? In truth those are probably points to be debated over a beer or three rather than within the pages of a book like The ABC Tour, one which I would commend to all lovers of cricket history.

*On the visit of a strong MCC side to India in 1926/27.