Cricket – The Philadelphia Story … MCC 1907-08

Martin Chandler | 8:43am BST 09 August 2026

Published: 2026
Pages: 96
Author: Smith, Steve
Publisher: Private
Rating: 3 stars

This is the second part of Steve Smith’s look at the Golden Age encounters between the MCC and The Gentlemen of Philadelphia. This one can be split into two separate parts, the MCC’s trip to North America in 1907, and then the following year, on the last of the Philadelphians visits to England, the encounter between the two sides at Lord’s.

Leading the MCC on their 1907 tour was an amateur fast bowler ‘Hex’ Hesketh-Pritchard, a man very much of his time whose biography, published shortly after his death, was subtitled Explorer, Naturalist, Cricketer, Author, Soldier. His greatest claim to fame was undoubtedly his role in the Great War, but I have always enjoyed the thought of his expedition to Patagonia in an unsuccessful quest to discover the Giant Sloth.

And Hesketh-Pritchard led a strong side. He himself was a decent performer at First Class level and he had with him the future England captain Johnny Douglas, regular South African Test players Sibley Snooke and Reggie Schwarz as well as other England players in Hampshire batsman Teddy Wynyard, wicketkeeper Gregor McGregor and George Simpson-Hayward, the last underarm bowler to play Test cricket who, in 1909/10 took 23 wickets at 18.26 in his five Tests in South Africa.

With other good players in his side and the end of Philadelphia as a force in world cricket rapidly approaching one might have expected to read about some one sided encounters, but in fact the opposite is true. Buoyed by the recruitment of the Australian leg spinner ‘Ranji’ Hordern the Philadelphians drew both fixtures in 1907 and in 1908 against an MCC team not dissimilar to the 1907 side but even stronger the Americans were to win their last ever meeting with the Marylebone Club.

The writing on the wall could however be read in the 1907 tourists game against the Philadelphian Colts, matches which in the past had had a habit of testing touring sides. Not so in 1907 however as despite playing 18 against 11 the Colts were hammered by an innings and 173.

The formula for the book itself will be familiar to those who have read the other books in the series. There are detailed accounts of all matches, profiles of some of the participants and all the scorecards as well as illustrations reproduced from contemporary sources. There are some interesting asides as well, not least of which being the fact that the 1907 tourists travelled across the Atlantic in the Lusitania, the sinking of which vessel by a German U-Boat eight years later would ultimately bring the US into that terrible conflict and hasten its conclusion.