Phillips Jim Image 1 Middlesex 1895

Description

Pleasant Creek, Victoria, Australia born Jim Phillips was a good medium-pace bowler, a fairly useful batsman and a smart field at cover-point. He did not play his first first class match for Victoria until 1885-86, and altogether played 124 matches for Canterbury, Middlesex and Victoria between 1885-86 and 1898-99. He represented Victoria between 1885 and 1896, and came to England in 1888 and joined the ground staff at Lord’s, playing for Middlesex from 1890 to 1898. Among his bowling feats were: 7-20 for Victoria against New South Wales at Melbourne in 1890-91; 13-117 for Middlesex against Sussex at Lord’s in 1895, and 13-187 for Middlesex against Gloucestershire on the same ground in 1896. In the course of a week’s cricket for M.C.C. at Lord’s in 1888 he took sixteen of Scarborough’s twenty wickets and dismissed four Notts Castle men in four balls.

He scored 1,827 runs at an average of 12.60 with a highest score of 110 not out for Canterbury against Wellington in 1898-99, his only century in addition to 3 half centuries, and took 355 wickets at an average of 20.00 with best figures of 8-69. He took ten or more wickets in a match seven times, five wickets or more in an innings on 30 occasions and also took 50 catches in first class play. As a player and umpire he travelled between Australia and England, following the cricket seasons. Middlesex valued his contribution so highly that he was given a benefit match, Australia v. Middlesex, in 1899. He was also able to help Australian players, such as Albert Trott find jobs and play cricket in England. For a while he coached in Christchurch, New Zealand and played first class cricket for Canterbury in 1898-99.

Phillips is as much remembered more for his work as an umpire than for anything he accomplished as a player, where as much as anyone else he is due the credit for stamping out throwing in first class cricket. According to Jack Pollard ‘Dimboola Jim’ Phillips was “a fearless umpire who was largely responsible for stamping out throwing around the turn of the [20th] century … establishing an international reputation for acumen and honesty.”

Going out to Australia to act as umpire with A.E. Stoddart’s team in 1897-98, he twice no-balled Ernest Jones, the Australian fast bowler, whose action against Harry Trott’s team in England in 1896 was condemned as unfair, Jones thus becoming the first bowler to be called for throwing in a Test match, as well as Tom McKibbin. Phillips’ actions, including the no-balling of the English amateur champion C.B. Fry, led to the captains of the first class Counties, at a meeting at Lord’s in December 1900. reached an agreement to deal strongly with the matter in the following summer, when in a match between Lancashire and Somerset at Old Trafford, Phillips no-balled Arthur Mold sixteen times. Despite Mold’s protestations, owing to the fact that the Lancashire fast bowler’s action had been condemned as unfair by the County captains at their famous meeting by a majority of eleven to one, his protest was systematically ignored.

The M.C.C. Committee issued a circular to all the County secretaries the following December in which it expressed the hope that the County Cricket Executives would in future decline to play bowlers with doubtful delivery actions. Thereafter English bowling was viewed as more uniformly fair and above suspicion than in any season during the previous 25 years and eventually throwing practically disappeared. Phillips umpired in 29 Test matches between 1885 and 1906, including 13 Test matches in Australia including all 5 in the 1894-95 and the 1897-98 series against England. He also umpired 11 matches in England against Australian touring sides, including all 3 in 1896, and 4 out of 5 in 1905. His last matches were the 5 played in South Africa against England in 1905-06. Thus he can claim to be the first genuinely “international” Test umpire.

Vintage Cricketers was founded in July 2019. There may be more photographs of this cricketer in the Vintage Cricketers library, which are due to be loaded in due course. In the meantime, please send a message to us using the contact form at the bottom left of this page and we can arrange to prepare and publish all images of this cricketer if you have a particular interest in him.