A Cricketing Odyssey

Martin Chandler | 9:37am GMT 08 February 2026

Published: 2025
Pages: 214
Author: Smith, Chris
Publisher: AC Publishing
Rating: 3 stars

After more than 120 years there is, finally, an account in book form of the 1901/02 England tour of Australia, the last such trip arranged otherwise than under the aegis of the MCC.

It is not perhaps a surprise that there was no contemporary account. The England side, despite the best efforts of skipper Archie MacLaren to talk them up, was by no means fully representative of the strength of England cricket and the 4-1 defeat that duly followed clearly didn’t excite UK publishers.

It is something of a surprise however that the series has never been the subject of a book before, as anyone who has read Michael Down’s classic biography of MacLaren will appreciate. The trip had plenty of controversial moments, before, during and after and the autocratic Old Harrovian was in the thick of nearly all of them.

Smith’s biggest difficulty in embarking on the project was the inevitable absence of anyone with any first hand recollection of the events of the trip. On occasion that can in part be offset by access to scrapbooks, diaries or other archive material belonging to those involved. That was not however a luxury that Smith had and his main sources are the pages of Cricket – A Weekly Record of the Game together with the whole gamut of contemporary Australian material thanks to the Trove website.

In a sense therefore the book is a little formulaic in that there are introductions and brief biographies of the players on both sides interspersed between accounts of all of the matches played. These concentrate on the Tests but the other fixtures are not ignored nor, to the extent they were reported in the contemporary press, are the non-cricketing engagements that the tourists were involved in.

In many ways the most interesting part of the story is the lead up to the tour in England and putting together the party and that is where the narrative is at its most enjoyable. The accounts of the play are, naturally, hampered by the fact that Smith is relying on secondary sources, but he still tells the stories well. Not everyone can be a Frith and write about ancient events in a way that gives the impression that they were actually present when the events they are describing too place.

In terms of the finished product there are pluses and minuses. Unlike some self-published books this one clearly has been properly proof read. The absence of much in the way of illustrations is however a source of some disappointment, as is the small size of the font used in the scorecards, but then at least they are there, although the tourist’s averages aren’t. The one real criticism that can be levelled at the book, and given the care that has obviously gone into it is a surprising one, is that not only is MacLaren’s name misspelt (McLaren) on the cover it is similarly misspelt throughout the book.

Ultimately however the 1901/02 series was an interesting one, and Smith has captured at least a measure of the drama as MacLaren’s men won the first Test before losing each of the next four. He also gets us one step closer to having at least one book on every Ashes series, and there is now a full set for those of the twentieth century.