Each week we spotlight a fascinating title from the vast collection catalogued in the Cricket Bibliography project, drawing on insightful (but not necessarily positive!) reviews from the archives of our journal. Today (after a couple of weeks off, sadly necessitated by the travel schedule of our editor) we bring you John Ward on Stephen Musk’s Outside the Tent: Free Enterprise in Australian Cricket, 1912-1987 (2024).
Stephen Musk has temporarily left his native Norfolk, so to speak, and produced a good insight into Australian cricket history with this book. The title of his prologue sets out its purpose: ‘The Struggle Between the Australian Cricket Board of Control and Players for the Heart and Soul of Cricket Down Under.’
There is actually much more that could be written about the troubled historical relationship between the Australian authorities and the players, most prominently regarding their tour to England in 1912, where the withdrawal of the leading Australian players ruined the Triangular Tournament there as a contest, and Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket programme between 1977 and 1980. Mr Musk does not concern himself particularly with these controversies, though, but rather with the actual tours, eleven of them altogether, which were arranged in defiance of the Board.
Until a quiet change of policy during the 1950s, which is covered in the book, the Australian Board’s tyrannical attitude to its amateur players makes the treatment by MCC and the English counties of its professionals seem virtually benevolent. (Not that all has been harmonious after that time, by any means.) Their viewpoint seems to have been that it took a lot of their money to run the system that produced their top cricketers, and therefore they had the right to control where their players exercised their skills. Ted McDonald and others who chose to play professional cricket in England were effectively banned from playing for Australia again, even though that would not have interfered with their availability for the Australian seasons, and in fact would probably have added to their skills.
This also included the arrangement of the tours covered in the book that were not approved by the Board. Eight of these took place before the Second World War, and then there were two rebel tours to South Africa between 1985 and 1987. These are the chapters that may be of greatest interest to readers, as they took place within the lifetimes of many of us, and Mr Musk gives many details about the arrangements that are not generally known.
For all these tours Mr Musk also gives us some interesting information and insights about the players and a few administrators themselves, some of them little known – for example, Arthur Mailey’s organization skills, or lack of, during the tour of North America in 1932. A lot of people, especially the Australian Board members, do not come out well in this book, but it is part of cricket history and Mr Musk has done well to enlighten us.