by James Philip
‘Trueman’s spell’ had claimed 6 wickets for 21 runs in ten breathtaking overs. Subsequently, he described it as ‘just one of those times when everything clicks’, albeit at a cost; by the time he dragged into the dressing room at the tea interval he was utterly spent and effectively, other than to stand – periodically flexing his broad shoulders and more gingerly, his back - at leg slip, he played little further part in the match.
Brian Statham was recalled – without luck or success - to knock over the Australian tail after the interval. He eventually induced Richie Benaud to nudge a ball behind but it flew between wicketkeeper Murray and first slip Colin Cowdrey without either man moving so much as a muscle and the last chance to strike a telling blow evaporated.
At the close Australia had advanced to 242 for 7; with Bill Lawry immovable on 88 and Benaud on 30.
The pair batted deep into the fourth morning. Lawry went to his hundred after seven hours at the wicket and Benaud, playing with increasing freedom began to catch up with him. Trueman and Statham had taken the new ball early in the session; Fiery Fred sending down three medium paced, stiffly delivered overs before retiring from the attack.
The last excitement in what will always be remembered as Barrington’s and Trueman’s match – an otherwise tame, boring draw – was over. Benaud played onto his wicket for 81 before lunch; Lawry carried his bat for 159, and the Australians were eventually all out on the stroke of tea for 407. On that wicket Barry Jarman and Garth McKenzie had looked like master batsmen dismissing the bowling of boys in the nets.[94]
Theoretically, the Australians had fallen short of the mark to avoid the possibility of being asked to follow on but Dexter’s bowlers were exhausted; and he never seriously contemplated asking Benaud to bat again. The England captain’s detractors criticised this royally but then they were not the men who would have had to troop, dehydrated and cheesed off back out into the enervating Adelaide heat to attempt to bowl out the old enemy a second time.
More problematic was the fact that at least two men – David Sheppard and Brian Statham were by then, suffering from sun stroke – and by his own admission, Fred Trueman was ‘good for nought’ that evening.
One makeshift opener, Peter Parfitt was joined by another, Ray Illingworth a capable but often under-employed batsman with a solid defence and a positively preternatural unflappability at the crease.
Parfitt again failed to register double figures, out ‘fishing’ at a McKenzie half-volley gleefully snaffled by Neil Harvey before the close catchers retreated into the outer.
At the close England had moved onto 73 for 1; Ken Barrington resuming where he had left off in the first innings on 25, Illingworth on a ‘nicely made’ 42.
There were less than ten thousand in the Adelaide Oval on the final day. The Test was meandering to an inevitable draw and the paying public never cares to pay good money to see their heroes ‘going through the motions’.
Ray Illingworth deserved a hundred; however, the ‘nervous nineties’ got him in the end although strictly speaking, it was Richie Benaud’s well-flighted googly that actually administered the coup de grace according to the scorebook.[95]
Dexter declared the England innings closed fifty minutes after tea after his men had let down their hair and ‘had a little fun’ that afternoon, careless of their averages. Apart that is, from Barrington who had remorselessly progressed to 144 not out by the time the innings closed on 309 for 8.
Benaud and Dexter called it a day, shook hands and the long, slow, pointless – other than for the entertainment of cricket statisticians – Fourth Test came to a merciful conclusion.
‘Cricket is an immensely better spectacle when the bowlers are always in the game,’ Dexter pronounced magisterially at the outset of an ill-humoured press conference at the MCC’s hotel that evening before the players went in to dinner. ‘Hats off to Ken but wickets like that one will kill Test cricket!’
Chapter 20 | Enter the Don
There were two weeks between the Fourth and Fifth Tests, a space filled by a return to the MCG to play a first-class match against Victoria, a trip to Canberra for a one day encounter the whole party was actually looking forward to; and then more country games in New South Wales before returning to Sydney for the Ashes decider. Nobody was thinking beyond the Fifth Test even though a three-match series against New Zealand – then possibly the weakest of the accredited ‘Test’-playing nations – awaited in March.
Getting wind of the discord before and during the Third Test the Duke of Norfolk had cabled both Dexter and Gubby Allen cordially imploring both parties to resolve their differences. Further to this the Earl Marshal had returned to England and somehow – given the burden of his responsibilities within the Royal Household and the unimaginable chaos of the country around him – he had ascertained the ‘availability of a number of men who might be of utility in New Zealand’.
It seemed that the news from Australia was a ‘huge morale booster’ and, ‘given that some men in Australia might wish to return home at the earliest opportunity, new men might be sent out with the assistance of the Emergency Administration’.
A list of possible names had been forwarded. Tellingly, there were no men from Middlesex, Surrey, Lancashire, Kent or Essex on that list. The Duke’s ‘advisors’ had put forward the ‘cases’ of Yorkshire’s Philip Sharpe and Jimmy Binks, Warwickshire’s Bob Barber, Jack Bannister and Tom Cartwright, Tony Brown of Gloucestershire, Worcestershire’s Norman Gifford, and Roger Prideaux and Keith Andrew of Northamptonshire.
Twenty-six year old batsman Phil Sharpe – acknowledged as the best slip catcher in England – had been in the original mix for the party. Roger Prideaux was another young batsman with possible future Test credentials, and Bob Barber, an aggressive opener had made his debut for England as long ago as 1960. Keith Andrew and Jimmy Binks were the best keepers left at home that winter. Bannister and Cartwright were typical ‘English’ medium fast seam bowlers likely to prosper in New Zealand conditions, and Tony Brown would have been a like for like swap for a bowler of Len Coldwell’s type who, at a pinch could bat somewhat. Left-arm spinner Gifford had been unlucky not to be considered for the Australian party when the selectors overlooked Tony Lock.
Dexter had passed the cable and its sequels to Colin Cowdrey and Alec Bedser, having confirmed privately to both men that he would step down from the captaincy at the conclusion of the Fifth Test.
Cowdrey had observed that ‘we’ve got enough keepers’ and suggested that ‘all the others make the trip’.
Whether by chance or in response to Dexter’s disparaging comments in the press about the Adelaide wicket the Melbourne curator had served up a grassy, green-tinged surface for the first day of the MCC’s match against the weak Victorian state side.
Cowdrey had no hesitation putting the Victorians in when he won the toss; although in the event the wicket was too slow to be truly sporty and despite losing Bill Lawry early on – he was presumably still recovering from his monumental rearguard action at Adelaide – Victoria reached 260 for 7 at the close of a pedestrian day in front of a crowd of some five thousand, lost in the grey vastness of the greatest amphitheatre in cricket.
MCC had recalled Geoff Pullar to open with Peter Parfitt, rested David Sheppard, Tom Graveney, Fred Trueman and Brian Statham, and therefore gone into the match a ‘batter light’ with Barry Knight at six and Illingworth at seven in the order, followed by Alan Smith and the bowlers, Lock, Coldwell and Larter.
With the Victorian innings swiftly ‘tidied up’ by David Larter on Saturday morning, MCC’s reply faltered before lunch as Ken Barrington registered a rare failure, out second ball.
However, a luncheon score of 40 for 3 became 118 for 4 at tea and 251 for 5 at the close with Barry Knight and Ray Illingworth both approaching their fifties. Although neither man prospered on the Monday after the rest day MCC eventually gained a first innings lead of some thirty runs on a wicket starting to take spin. Bowling unchanged Lock and Illingworth
reduced the Victorians to 107 for 6 at tea, whereupon directly after the interval David Larter was summoned into the attack and duly ripped through the state side’s exposed tail.
Parfitt, Pullar and when the former perished hitting out for quick runs, Ken Barrington saw MCC home in fading light with ten minutes to spare in the evening session, finishing the contest in three days and thus earning the tourists a welcome day off.
The tour itinerary originally called for the MCC to travel the two hundred and ninety miles to Canberra by chartered flight on the evening of the last day of the Victoria match. Given that play was scheduled to begin at 11:00 AM the next day one is bound to ask exactly how much sleep and or rest the men involved in the Melbourne game would have managed to fit in?
The match at the Manuka Oval – possibly the largest cricket ground anywhere – in Canberra against an Australian Prime Minister’s XI was a true festival-type fixture long trumpeted to be Sir Donald Bradman’s return, albeit probably for only one match, to cricket.
The Don had retired from the game in 1948; he was then and remains the most formidable run scorer in the history of the game, averaging very nearly a hundred in Tests and 97.14 in his first-class career. To assert that he was an Australian national icon was to monstrously understate his place in the hearts of his people. Now aged fifty-four after fourteen years out of the game he had agreed to captain the Prime Minister’s eleven, and getting into the spirit of the occasion, MCC had included his old adversary Alec Bedser in its side. Over ten thousand people had turned out to celebrate the event.
This fixture had been inaugurated as long ago as 1951 by Sir Robert Menzies to raise money to support the families of Australian servicemen who had died in the country’s twentieth century wars, and unlike so many of the ‘up country’ matches each touring party since 1951 had relished the ‘day off at the cricket’ that it represented.
Dexter won the toss.
‘Do you feel like batting?’ He had inquired politely of the great man.
The Don, still lean and fit beneath his broad brimmed floppy green cap had thought about it a moment: ‘Yes, why not?’
The Prime Minister’s eleven included three parliamentarians with relatively modest cricketing pedigrees who had never played at above grade level; the other eight members of the team were mostly past, present and future Test Match players including Neil Harvey, Ken Mackay, Richie Benaud, Wally Grout, all of whom had played for Australia that season. Every member of the MCC side except Alec Bedser had featured in the Tests against Australia earlier in the tour.
Bradman had listed himself at five in the order behind two former grade cricketers, now MPs in the Canberra Parliament, who once the opening partnership was broken quickly departed the scene. The Don walked out to the anticipated standing ovation to join twenty-two year old Victorian test prospect Bob Cowper.
‘Take a care with short singles,’ the great man declared.
Brian Statham was bowling briskly with his customary accuracy. His first delivery thudded into the Don’s pads and although he turned to appeal to the umpire, oddly, not a sound escaped his lips.
Bradman looked round, gauging how close the ball might have come to bowling him.
Very close...
The next ball was three-quarters pace, pitched up like a throw down in the nets and the Don eased it through the offside for four, practically bringing down the house.
Cowper clipped a ‘long’ single into the outer off the second ball of the next over, bowled by Alec Bedser. Bedser was ten years younger than his old foe but less spry, for a bowler’s life is beset with niggling injuries and strains that never really heal, unlike the knocks a batsman tends to take now and then. Nevertheless, the ball still snapped down on a good length most of the time and at a respectable pace; it was just that unlike before when he was in harness, every fourth or fifth ball was a little wayward in length or direction and the Don jumped on two such deliveries in that first Bedser over.
‘Just like old times, Alec!’ Fred Trueman observed dryly, much to the annoyance of the man who until a couple of weeks before had still been the record wicket taker in Test Match cricket.[96]
Brian Statham was withdrawn from the attack and Dexter came on to bowl his sharp medium pacers. Content to leave Bedser toiling – his pace starting to flag – at the other end until the Acting Tour Manager called it a day, Dexter planned to give as many men as possible the opportunity to bowl at the Don. This was a game unlike any other on the tour, a real festival of cricket.
Presently, Cowper, possibly a little unnerved to be batting with the great man miscued a hook and Neil Harvey, after the Don possibly the finest Australian batsman of the age, came in and began to take a toll on the MCC’s festival bowling.
Belatedly, Dexter became aware of the Don’s deepening frown.
Easy runs do not count!
Alec Bedser had bowled unchanged for over ninety minutes; enough was enough. He had taken the wicket of veteran New South Wales batsman Ray Flockton, a man with a first-class average of over forty who had never quite aspired to the Australian side, and bowled to the Don as best he could these days; honour was satisfied.
The score was 166 for 4 and the premier’s eleven still had Benaud, Mackay, Grout and another redoubtable veteran of the Don’s 1948 ‘Invincibles’ Sam Loxton to come. Festival match or not Dexter had no intention of letting the home team’s score get out of hand.
Fred Trueman and Brian Statham were signalled to return to the fray. The Don, having reached 35 nodded his approval when next he caught Dexter’s eye.
Fiery Fred’s opening salvo was well directed, although not particularly hostile; Statham on his recall was clearly straining at the leash, prompting two false shots from the Don. From the outset the Englishmen had been struck by how often, when he made contact, the middle of the Don’s bat met the ball. They had heard all about his nimbleness of foot, which seemed hardly diminished but were unsurprised when after so long out of top class cricket his concentration wavered.
With Trueman’s introduction to the attack the Don got a second wind, positively bristling with combative intent with every shot whether in defence or offence.
Soon the duel was joined in earnest.
Trueman’s pace quickened; his follow up ended closer and closer to the great man. Neil Harvey, perhaps mesmerised by the contest edged behind for 40 to permit Richie Benaud to take over his ringside seat.
The luncheon break spoiled everybody’s fun.
Afterwards Don Bradman went to fifty with an on drive to the pickets off Trueman, who snorting with new intent roared in with new deadly intent.
The battle could not last for long.
That was its magic, the thing that kept ten thousand people on the edge of their seats for so long.
Don Bradman departed for 56, bowled of his pads by a lightning quick ball Fiery Fred would have been proud of in his younger pomp.
The tourists queued to shake the Don’s hand as the crowd rose in an ovation that continued long after he had disappeared into the newly opened Manuka Oval Sir Donald Bradman Stand.
Everything after that was pure anti-climax.
The Don declared the Premier XI’s innings at 235 for 8.
MCC knocked off the runs for the loss of two wickets, Prime Minister Menzies made a speech about Commonwealth unity and the brotherhood of sportsmen of all nations, invited both teams to the official dinner that evening and presented a surprised Fred Trueman with a silver tankard as a birthday[97] present from the Australian people.
And then it was back to the real – commercial and sporting – business of the tour.
Chapter 21 | Dubbo and Tamworth
The road to Sydney and the Fifth Test was hardly straight, or even. Flying back into Sydney on the 7th February the day after the festival in Canberra, the party took another flight across the Blue Mountains to Dubbo the best part of two hundred miles north west of the State capital, where at the picturesque Victoria Park Oval MCC was due to play the
first of two ‘up country’ two-day matches in the heart of New South Wales’s prosperous western sheep and wheat-growing districts.
Dubbo, named for the aboriginal word meaning ‘red earth’, turned out to be another English sort of town laid out on a temperate rolling landscape that would not have been out of place in the Home Counties back home... The tourists’ welcome was nothing if not effusive and enthusiastic to the point of the ecstatic.
The first explorer to survey the area had been a Yorkshireman, John Oxley in 1818; its first European settler English-born Robert Dulhunty and the town’s links with the Old Country remained a matter of utmost pride; a thing impressed on the visitors by Dubbo’s Mayor, Les Ford and his welcoming committee which included his deputy, Phil Beddoes, chief of police John Kempton, and the assembled membership of the Dubbo Cricket Association, the Returned Servicemen’s League, the Bowling club – whose immaculately manicured greens were adjacent to the Victoria Park Oval – and practically every citizen. The reception was in every way overwhelming; not an accusation which could be levelled at the quality of the two New South Wales Country elevens awaiting the tourists.
Out in the Australian hinterlands air conditioning was as yet unknown and few of the tourists slept easily on this leg of the tour, which otherwise turned into an untroubled extension of the festival in Canberra. The Don’s innings and the spirit in which the match at the Manuka Oval had been played was the talk of Dubbo and countless other hamlets and cities across the continent.
David Larter was a nightmare to the grade cricketers and clubmen of Western New South Wales whose captain unwisely decided to bat first the next morning, Friday 8th February.