MCC v Australians at Lord's, 27 May 1878

[3] The team members were John Conway (manager), W. C. V. Gibbes (assistant-manager), Dave Gregory (captain), Frank Allan, George Bailey, Alick Bannerman, Charles Bannerman, Jack Blackham (wicketkeeper), Harry Boyle, Tom Garrett, Tom Horan, Billy Midwinter, Billy Murdoch and Fred Spofforth.

Apart from Midwinter, who was already in England, the team left Sydney on 29 March 1878 and sailed via Auckland and Honolulu to San Francisco, from where they travelled across America by train to New York City.

This was a three-day match against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge and the Australians were well beaten by an innings and 14 runs, an inauspicious start which dampened much of the public enthusiasm that their visit had generated.

[5] On Sunday, 26 May, the USEE team caught the ferry back to England and W. G. Grace continued by train to London, probably in the company of Bannerman and Midwinter, as all three were due to take part in the match at Lord's the following day.

[6] 1878 was a "chilly and wet summer" in which the bad wickets reduced "all (batsmen) to comparative impotence" but enabled bowlers to dominate and cause "havoc" and that was certainly the case at Lord's on 27 May.

[4][9] In his ghost-written Reminiscences (1899), W. G. Grace recalled that there had been "only four and a half hours of actual cricket" net of the lunch interval and breaks between innings.

[10] Play started at three minutes past twelve on a "sticky wicket", a wet pitch drying out as the sun began to shine.

[10] As news of the proceedings spread, the crowd grew in the afternoon sunshine and, at the end, they "mobbed the Australians as they left the field in a spirit of non-partisan enthusiasm".

[19] Although the match did not mark the birth of international cricket, it was the point in time at which the English sporting public wholeheartedly embraced the concept.

As Lord Hawke put it:[2] (27 May 1878) this marked the commencement of the modern era of cricket.As for W. G. Grace, his whole approach to cricket was about what was needed to win the game in hand and he never took kindly to defeat.