Victory Tests

Mark Rowe

Description

One minute before 7pm on Tuesday May 22, 1945, a packed Lord's roared as Australia beat England in the last over of the first Victory Test. A fortnight after victory in Europe, the result did not matter - only the cricket. The five matches between a near full-strength England and Australian servicemen drew huge crowds, yet this story is forgotten today. Using the available sources to the full, The Victory Tests details the tests and what made the dressing rooms tick as the 1945 series brought sporting competition with goodwill.

Sujets

• Críquet
• Inglaterra
• Australia
• England
• Cricket

Informations

• Publié par: Sportsbooks
• Date de parution: 16 septembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781907524127
• Langue: English

Extrait

Contents
Title page
Dedication

Chapter 1
Adelaide One
Chapter 2
Lord’s, May 21 1945
Chapter 3
Lichfield, Staffordshire, Wartime
Chapter 4
No Mere Gladiators
Chapter 5
Eastbourne, Spring 1945
Chapter 6
Lord’s, May 19 and 22 1945
Chapter 7
The Teams
Chapter 8
Between the First and Second Tests
Chapter 9
Second Test, Bramall Lane
Chapter 10
Amateurs and Professionals
Chapter 11
Third Test, Lord’s
Chapter 12
Sent to Coventry
Chapter 13
What is bright cricket?
Chapter 14
Fourth Test, Lord’s
Chapter 15
Fifth Test, Old Trafford
Chapter 16
The Way Home
Chapter 17
A New Era
Chapter 18
Adelaide Two
Chapter 19
The Last Enemy

Pen Portraits
Sources and Thanks
Index
Plates
Copyright
In memory of Allan Duel
Born Banyo, Queensland, 1923
Rear gunner, 460 Squadron Royal Australian Air Force,
Binbrook, Lincolnshire, 1943–4
Killed in flying accident, near Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire, June 5, 1944

For anyone to kill me he’d have to kill
every single Australian,
every single one of them,
every single one.

Ian Mudie, They’ll Tell You About Me
Chapter One
Adelaide One
I am not a specialist in the history of cricket. But its pages are presumably studded with the names of those who made centuries rather than of those who made ducks and were left out of the side.
EH Carr, What is History? (1961)
As Bradman batted on, and on, and on , that Monday, March 2, 1936, Ross Stanford must have known he would have only one chance. Stanford was waiting to bat at number six for South Australia against Tasmania. He was the lowest in the order, and the youngest, of three debut batsman. South Australia could take the chance because Tasmania were Australia’s weakest state, not even in the Sheffield Shield; and a week earlier South Australia had won the shield, thrashing Victoria by an innings, even though Donald Bradman had only scored one.
Tasmania made 158 all out. In reply Jack Badcock, the opener, who had scored 325 in that previous win, was soon out, but by the end of the first day South Australia the hosts were well ahead, on 222 for two. Bradman, ominously, was 127 not out. On the second day, Monday March 2, one of the debutants, 20-year-old Ron Hamence, turned his overnight 60 not out into 121. When his, the third, wicket fell at 387, the other new boy, 18-year-old Brian Leak went in and Stanford became next man, knowing he might have to face the ball after next. He had to wait for more than an hour. Tasmania had no hope of making South Australia bat again, so Stanford – the 18-year-old son of an Adelaide market gardener – would have only this innings to show what he was made of. At 533 the fourth wicket fell, that of Brian Leak. He had made only 19 in a stand of 146, so fast was Bradman scoring. Stanford walked to the middle to join the world’s greatest batsman.
One of the many strange things about cricket is the definition of good and bad: what makes a debut good or bad, for example? The more runs or wickets, the better. Yet runs against bowlers as utterly beaten and exhausted as Tasmania’s would not count for much. Even a big score, if made slowly or in a dull or fortunate manner, could harm a batsman’s standing. Equally a small score, if made stylishly or ended by bad luck, could leave a man with some credit. Stanford, alas, could not have done worse if he had tried. He recalled in old age:

When I walked out to bat my knees were wobbling and I had double vision, I was so nervous. And he [Bradman] did the right thing, he knew I was nervous. He was batting when I went in. He had strike and he played about four shots for two, to get me running up and down the wicket, and then he let me have the wicket. I hit it straight to cover and called for a run and there was no hope of a run and he sent me back. I didn’t know what I was doing, I didn’t think.

At least Stanford did not run out Don Bradman.
Two runs later, at 552, Bradman was out, caught and bowled, for 369. The applause of the crowd of 1,500 must have contrasted cruelly with the quiet or at best sympathetic reception for the failed teenager. South Australia batted on, to 688, and Tasmania went in again just before the end of the day. They were out again before the end of the third day, the end of the season, losing by a colossal – so colossal it was needlessly humiliating – innings and 349 runs. Stanford was no bowler, so he had no second chance to do anything. If anyone doubts how cruel sport can be, they can see in the Adelaide Oval museum a black and white photograph of the match scoreboard, showing the Don’s 369 above Stanford’s zero. Black and white, failure and success, were seldom so obvious. Stanford knew it: ‘I didn’t do any good,’ he said.
If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again, is an English saying. In Australia in cricket, as in life, if you do not do enough to keep your place, you soon lose it, to someone younger and more promising than yourself, who deserves the chance you once deserved. What happened next to those three young men on debut reflected how well each had done. Hamence had the most successful career, playing three Tests and touring England in 1948 as one of the Invincibles. Leak played a few more times for South Australia. Stanford was not picked the next season, nor the next, nor the next; then war came.

At least for Stanford there were up to six batting places at which to aim – five if you count Bradman. Most teams only wanted one slow left-arm bowler like Reg Ellis, so at any step from club to state to country he could find his path blocked. South Australia was the home of the little leg-spinner Clarrie Grimmett, one of the world’s most famous, though he was not picked for the Ashes tour to England in 1938. His fellow state leg-spinner Frank Ward went instead. Any hopeful South Australian slow bowler would have to step into a dead (or rather retired) man’s shoes; and Grimmett was still going in his late 40s.
A man with cricket ambitions could move, as Grimmett had. Reg Ellis was one to stay put, despite all his wartime travelling. When aged 91, he was still living in the part of Adelaide in which he grew up, a mile or so from the sea.

When I was young I was a fast bowler. I played with the men up the road a little bit, at Morphett Vale at 14, and in between we used to just bowl at the wicket and I used to bowl down these googly balls and the captain a man called Jack Anderson said, ‘Why don’t you bowl spin?’ I said, ‘I don’t know, I have never thought of it’, and from then I bowled spin. We came down here to Port Noarlunga and they opened a new oval just over the other side of the river and brought the Sturt cricket team of which Vic Richardson was captain and we played them and nearly beat them. I got five wickets in that game and he invited me down to Adelaide and I started in the Bs. I played five matches in the B grade and got five wickets in each innings, 25 wickets in five matches, and got posted up to A grade and I played for senior colts then, that was an A grade team of all young fellers. I topped the bowling aggregate that year, that’s how I got into the team but by that time there was Grimmett and Ward playing for Sturt, two Test bowlers, and I had no chance of getting into the team without they gave up.

What competition – two Test bowlers at your local club! Yet cricket in Australia’s state capital cities – the same applied in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane – thrived because the great men, like Vic Richardson, a Test batsman, took an interest in young talent, as Reg’s story shows.

And Grimmett was captain of the colts team – that’s why I got all the gen there. We had a piece on the pitch like a two shilling piece, a little shiny piece on the pitch, over after over trying to hit that on good length. That’s how he got me into bowling on a good length all the time. I never changed the grip on the ball, I had my hands around the seam all the time.

Ellis learned three balls: each depending on where the hand was facing when letting the ball go. If facing the batsman it was a leg break for a left hander. Side on was a top spinner, and out of the top of the hand was a googly. ‘The best ball of them all was the top spinner because it used to gain speed off the pitch. That was my instruction from Grimmett. He never changed grip either, never ever, always around the seam. So that the seam hit when it hit the pitch. It’s all in accuracy. The more accurate you are the better and once you can turn the ball three ways and you are accurate with it, well, it’s got to be good. You got to set your field accordingly.’
The older, wiser Grimmett taught the slow bowler’s philosophy besides. Whether you did badly, or well, some would never quite appreciate your skill. There is a story about arguably the most famous slow ball ever – the one by Eric Hollies that bowled Bradman for a duck in his last Test in 1948. Hollies said: ‘Look at them. All cheering for the batsman and not one for the bowler.’ That said, to accept your lot or to be merely patient could be dangerous. When a batsman went after you, you had to think . Fast, as Reg Ellis said:

Hard to say, you just did what you thought would stop them. Bowl fast, slower ball, yorkers to them, depends how they attack you. Sometimes you got hit around and sometimes you didn’t, but that’s all part of the game.

You did your best. That came easy for an Australian lad, born in the Barossa valley in 1917, whose family moved to Port Noarlunga when he was aged seven. It was an outdoor and beach life, cool in winter, hot and dry in summer. Lads sunbathed in their spare time on the jetty; only later would they know they had given themselves skin cancers.

My father bought a vineyard, a full section, 80 acres. But unfortunately my father was a bad alcoholic and a gambler and we lost the lot. Oh, he used to stay away from home for a fortnight sometimes and we never saw him … That meant I didn’t drink