The England national cricket team toured Ceylon, Australia and New Zealand in the 1929–30 season to play a Test series against the New Zealand national cricket team. This was the first Test series ever played by New Zealand. England began the tour in October 1929 in Ceylon with a single minor match and then in Australia where they played five first-class matches. The New Zealand leg of the tour began in December and, in addition to the Test series, England played each of the main provincial teams: Auckland, Wellington, Canterbury and Otago.[1] England, captained by Harold Gilligan, won the Test series 1–0 with three matches drawn.
At the same time another English team, captained by Freddie Calthorpe, was touring the West Indies, playing the first Test series there.[2] It was the only time one country has played in two Test matches on the same day.[3]
Apart from Woolley, who had played 55 Tests before the tour, it was an inexperienced side at Test level. Bowley had played two Tests, and Barratt, Dawson, Duleepsinhji and Legge one each; the other eight had not played a Test.[4] There were eight amateurs and six professionals.[5]
The team was selected in late June, with Arthur Gilligan, who had played 11 Tests, as captain.[6] However, he was unable to tour owing to illness, and his younger brother Harold was selected to replace him. The other change to the original selected team was that Maurice Allom replaced Frank Watson.[7]
The tour made a small profit for the New Zealand Cricket Council, despite the unusually wet summer, but some of this profit had to be used to pay the English team's professionals. The council's chairman, Arthur Donnelly, declared that the English team were "the most agreeable and pleasant lot of fellows" the council had ever dealt with.[8]
In its report of the tour, The Cricketer said the New Zealand batting was strong, but the bowling and fielding needed substantial improvement. It said the general standard of cricket throughout New Zealand was rising, "but except in the Test matches the placing of the field was none too good, and the bowlers suffered accordingly. The umpiring, apart from the Tests, was only moderate."[9]