back, back, back, before anyone invented Twenty20, before the Ashes and beyond, before basketball was even invented, and when baseball was still a child’s game, Toronto’s eleven best cricketers traveled south, across the border to to play a two-day match against the 11 best cricketers in the US.
It was September 1844, seven years before the first America’s Cup, 16 before the first Open Championship and 33 before the first Test match. That means Canada vs. USA, the opening match of this year’s World Cup, is not only the oldest international match in the sport, but, according to historians, the oldest in any sport.
The strangest detail of this already strange story is that the series, which has been running for 180 years depending on the state of relations between the two nations, started as a joke.
In the summer of 1840, a man claiming to be a Canadian player named George Phillpotts challenged the St George’s Club in New York to a match against his own Toronto CC. St George’s was, by all accounts, a stuffy bunch of proud English expats who considered themselves the best club in the country. Their players headed north and discovered after most of a week-long trip that the invitation was a hoax.
Whoever Phillpotts was, he was not the man managing the wicket for TCC, who had not been in New York that week and knew nothing of the proposal. In fact, the Toronto players already had an away game scheduled that weekend. But they still agreed to a game against the guests, since the New Yorkers had come all the way there to play.
Toronto lost, but according to reports everyone had a great time anyway and the players drank “nine times nine toasts to the sons of St. George, St. Patrick, St. David and St. Andrew.” Somewhere in the middle, the two teams agreed to make it an annual competition.
Toronto won the second leg, so the next time St George’s went north they brought three Philadelphian Ringers. The Canadians refused to play, insisting that only members of the two clubs were eligible. And it was during the fallout from this row that St George’s suggested that the match should become a truly representative match between the best available players from all the clubs on either side of the border. They published a challenge in the press. The Torontonians accepted and in September 1844 they traveled south to play for a stake of $1,000.
They were an odd bunch, led by their champion all-rounder, David Winckworth, who was known as a “cautious bat” and a “fast round-arm bowler”. He opened with John Wilson, not long ago from England, who was said to be one of the “best longstop fielders in the country” because he was an expert at taking the long barrier with his right shin.
They also chose George Barber, who had nine fingers, who once played a one-wicket match in which he batted for two whole days without letting his opponent reach the crease; John Beverly Robinson, who would rise to become mayor of Toronto; an underarm bowler named Harry Maddock, who was apparently “barely taller than the wicket” and “always wore a black beaver hat”; and their club professional, Fred French, who was their groundsman, caretaker and cook. French was apparently known for his dish of “chops with tomato sauce.”
The Americans were led by Robert Tinson, a businessman who made his money selling carpets, and also chose James Turner, who scored the continent’s first recorded century when he made 120 against St George’s, and professional player Sam Wright , who had moved from Sheffield. Wright’s sons, Harry and George, were both also professional cricketers, but eventually became much better known for their baseball with the Cincinnati Red Stockings. Both men made it into the baseball Hall of Fame and Harry is still known as the “Father of the Professional Game.”
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The match was held at St George’s Manhattan home on Bloomingdale Road and, judging by contemporary press coverage, it was the only thing anyone in New York was talking about. Just over 5,000 people showed up, almost as many as are expected to be at Grand Prairie, Texas, for the opening match of this World Cup.
Canada won the toss and batted until mid-afternoon for 82; Winckworth, the crack bat George Sharpe and someone known only as “Freeling” made 12 each. The USA replied with 64, Tinson top-scored with 14. The second day’s play was a failure, so everyone agreed to come back and finish things 24 hours later.
During the delay, things started to get strange. One of the umpires, who had given a controversial lbw against the Americans, disappeared and the US number 3 batsman, George Wheatcroft, disappeared. The Weekly heraldwho reported that almost $100,000 had been wagered on the game, said that “ugly rumors were circulating that could explain the absence of this gentleman at such a crucial time.”
The Canadians made 63 in their second innings – Winckworth again top-scored with a fine 14 – and then bowled out the USA for 58 to win by 23 runs. The American players challenged them to a “double or quits” game the next day. The Canadians refused and returned home richer, beaming with the satisfaction of having defeated their neighbors and completely unaware that their descendants would still be at it more than 200 years later.