Not until Monday, May 27, 1878, did the English public take any real interest in Australian cricket, though in 1877 in their own country the Australians had defeated Lillywhite’s eleven on even terms. Prior to this date four English teams had visited Australia, but their doings, though recorded in the press, did not interest the cricket community at home. The Australian players met with in the Colonies were no doubt learning from the English teams they had seen and played against, but the idea that they were up to the standard of English first-class cricket seemed absurd; and to a certain extent this estimate was justified by the records of the English visitors. In 1862 H. H. Stephenson, Surrey player and huntsman, took out twelve professional players to the Colonies under the auspices of Messrs. Spiers and Pond. They played twelve matches against eighteens and twenty-twos, won six, lost two, and drew four. In 1864, two years later, George Parr took out a team, which played sixteen matches against twenty-twos, and was not beaten at all. In 1873 Mr. W. G. Grace visited the antipodes at the request of the Melbourne Cricket Club; his eleven played fifteen matches, all against odds, won ten, lost three, and drew two. In 1876 James Lillywhite followed, and it was during this tour that the Australians first won a match on equal terms. Lillywhite’s team played Australia on March 15, 16 and 17, 1877, with the result that Australia won by 45 runs. This match was noteworthy for another reason. C. Bannerman made 165 for Australia, and was the first amongst Australian batsmen to score a hundred against English bowlers. Now, though English cricketers had been beaten on even terms as recently as 1877, the fact seemed to have been lost sight of at home in 1878, and when the first Australian eleven that ever visited England arrived early in the latter year, it never occurred to anyone that it could have any chance of actually storming the citadel of English cricket with success. On May 27, 1878, English cricket and its lovers received a serious shock, as on that day, in the extraordinarily short space of four and a half hours, a very fair team of the M.C.C. were beaten by nine wickets. The famous English club was certainly well represented, seeing that W. G. Grace, A. W. Ridley, A. J. Webbe, A. N. Hornby, Shaw, and Morley did battle for it. Gregory’s team, as the Australians were called, had a very successful season, beating, in addition to M.C.C., Yorkshire, Surrey, Middlesex, Leicestershire, Sussex, Gloucestershire, and a bad eleven of the ‘Players,’ and being beaten by Nottingham, the Gentlemen of England, Yorkshire, and Cambridge, the latter the most decisive defeat of all.