A Team-Signed Gelatin Print Photograph of the R.M.S. Otranto Carrying the Visiting M.C.C Cricket Team to Australia in 1928

A Team-Signed Gelatin Print Photograph of the R.M.S. Otranto Carrying the Visiting M.C.C Cricket Team to Australia in 1928,

This fine gelatin print is both a record of the luxury liner R. M. S. Otranto, operated by the Orient Line (Orient Steam Navigation Company) and of one of England’s most successful teams of touring cricketers, the M.C.C. Team of 1928-29 which won the series on Australian soil, a rare feat even then.

The 1928-29 M.C.C. Team

The photograph is signed by all 17 members of the touring squad who were

1. P. F. Chapman (Kent) (Captain).
2. C. White (Somerset) (Deputy Captain).
3. R. Jardine (Surrey).
4. B. Hobbs (Surrey).
5. Sutcliffe (Yorkshire).
6. R. Hammond (Gloucestershire).
7. P. Hendren (Middlesex).
8. Tyldesley (Lancashire).
9. P. Mead (Hampshire).
10. Leyland (Yorkshire).
11. W. Tate (Sussex).
12. Geary (Leicestershire).
13. Duckworth (Lancashire).
14. E. G. Ames (Kent).
15. Larwood (Notts).
16. P. Freeman (Kent).
17. J. Staples (Notts).

S.J. Southerton, the cricket historian, wrote in 1930 that ‘Opinions may differ as to the exact place in the relative table of merit of visiting teams, occupied by the combination which, in 1928-29, for the first time since the war – or to be more exact, since 1911-12 – won in Australia the rubber for England. Having had the good fortune to see all their matches, I have no hesitation in allotting to them a very high position. There may have been a teams which included players more brilliant and skilful individually but rarely has a side gone to Australia and played from beginning to end of a strenuous and in many respects tiring tour with the team spirit so admirably maintained in every engagement’.

Southerton goes on to describe the “barracking” which greeted the English players but on this occasion at least did not deter them. The tour was a considerable sporting and financial success, generating a large amount of revenue for the M.C.C. to invest back in to county and grass roots cricket.

1. M. S. Otranto

Built in 1925 as an ocean liner and a mail carrying ship, in association with the Royal Mail, Otranto was a product of the Vickers-Armstrong yard in Barrow-in-Furness. Weighing just over 20,000 tons, she had twin propellers driven by six steam turbines. During WWII she was requisitioned as a troop ship and later modified to act as an infantry landing ship. After the cessation of hostilities she returned to operation as a passenger liner, making her final voyage to Australia in 1957.