The greatest bowler – arguably – in cricket’s long history was an American

At first, the Americans had a rough go of it. That changed on 17 June, when the Philadelphians played the full Sussex County team in Brighton. John Barton King unleashed the full fury of his majestic talents. In the first innings, he combined with John Lester for a fourth-wicket stand of 107 runs. King then bowled, taking seven wickets for 13 runs as the Philadelphians dismissed Sussex for 46 in less than an hour. King wasn’t done yet; in the second innings, he took took six wickets for 102 runs, and led his team to an eight-wicket victory.

King’s feats were replicated in a second tour by the Philadelphians in 1903. During that tour, the Philadelphians inflicted the worst defeat ever by an American cricket team over an English county team, defeating Gloucestershire by an innnings and 26 runs. King’s efforts on the field led luminaries like Sir Pelham Warner to describe him as “one of the finest bowlers of all time”. Exploits like that brought the inevitable comparisons by English cricket observers to Australian teams, leading American cricket fans to think that the United States was poised to explode onto cricket’s main stage.

It never happened