Another dramatic collapse to remember
Muhunthan Sivapragasam
I am surprised that nobody mentioned another dramatic collapse
which turned the match around ( like Sarfraz's spell ) :
Richie Benaud's bowling ( he was the captain ) against Englishmen
when he took 6 wkts or so. Can anyone give more details ?
--muhunthan
Gunnit S. Khurana
What about India's 45 all out against ENG in 1974 with Gavaskar
and Vishy in the team?????????
Sadiq Yusuf
wone the first test of a 3 test series pretty handily. WI had a 25 run lead
on first inning because of some lusty hitting by the last pair(low scoring
game, 170 and 195 I think). Pakistan was coasting along in th 2nd inning,
145 or so for 3, 2 of those wickets having gone before 20 runs were scored.
Shoaib , someone (Saeed Anwar ?), and the nightwatchman (Moin Khan ?) had
tamed the attack , and Pakistan looked to be building up enough of a lead
to win the game and probably the series. Then, Marshall came in and scythed
thru the batting, going thru them like a knife thru hot butter (Ok, so it's
a cliche. So sue me :-) Pakistan went from like 145/3 to 146 for 9, and
then to 154 or so all out ! WI lost 3 for 29 or so, I think (lost them
pretty early at any rate), and then Richardson and Hooper (?) rattled up
the rest without further loss. And the WI kept their position as the #1
test cricket playing nation, still undefeated after all these years (in a
series). All really due to one bowling spell from a man who many felt at
that time was past it and didn't have anything left, who could not be _that_
dangerous anymore !
Sadiq [ searching memory banks ] Yusuf
Samir Chopra
Yup...Here are the details as supplied by Ajit Tamhane:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
id AA01838; Fri, 31 Jan 92 09:14:00 CST
From: atam...@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Ajit Tamhane)
Message-Id: <920131151...@casbah.acns.nwu.edu>
Subject: England vs. Aus. Old Trafford Test 1961
To: axe...@cbnewsk.att.com
Date: Fri, 31 Jan 92 9:13:59 CST
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL8]
Samir: You asked in r.s.c. about the Test in which England was winning
thanks to Dexter until Benaud caused a sudden debacle. Here are the details
of that Test: Australia 1st inning 190 (Lawry 74, Statham 5/53), England
1st inning 367 (may 95, Barrington 78, Pullar 63, Simpson 4/23), Australia
2nd inning 432 (Lawry 102, Davidson 77*, O'Neill 67, Simpson 51, Allen
4/58), England 2nd inning 201 (Dexter 76, Benaud 6/70).
Aus. were quickly dismissed in their 1st inning, and except for Lawry
there was no resistance to Statham. England passed this score with only 3
wkts. down and were 358 for 6, but Simpson mopped up the tail. Aus. made up
the deficit of 177 on the first inning easily but wkts. regularly fail and
were 334 for 9 with a lead of only 157 on the last morning when McKenzie
joinied Davidson. The two added 98 for the last wicket with Davo remaining
not out. Still England had enough time to score 256 needed to win, and
Dexter started the chase in earnest scoring 76 in 84 minutes. But Benaud
then struck claiming Dexter behind the wicket and bowling May round his
legs for a duck and taking 5 for 12 in 25 balls. The win in this Test
enabled Aus. to retain the Ashes.
I have difficulty posting on r.s.c. although I am a regular reader. If
you want, you can post this for me on r.s.c. for the benefit of general
readership.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
later,
Samir
--
"You guys are gonna smoke in the other room, the smoke will come drifting in
here..it'll look like rose stems, but there's tiny nooses hanging from them.."
Sadiq Yusuf
book extracts. So, Iam joining it myself !!
I've been planning for a while to learn how to scan things, finally
got around to it.With the India-Australia test series now over, a report of
another test, I felt, would not be remiss.
I decided my first attempt at scnning would be of a terrific test
match, and an even greater description of it. This is cricket from the turn
of the century, and the report from the incomparable Neville Cardus. The
extract is from The Faber Book of Cricket, which itself has taken it from
"Days in the Sun". Highly recommended reading (the Faber book I mean,
haven't read the other one myself). This is pretty long, so be warned
(maybe it should be posted in 2 parts, but Iam not doing that. If it looks
necessary, will do it next time). All responsibilities for mistakes my own
of course, feedback welcome.
Sadiq [ Neville Cardus groupie ] Yusuf
******************************************************************************
The Ashes: Old Trafford (1902)
The most thrilling finish of all the Test matches ever fought at
Old Trafford happened on the Saturday afternoon of July
26th, 1902. It was the decisive game of the rubber, and
Australia won it by three runs, snatching the spoils from the
lion's mouth. The match at the end seemed to get right out of
the control of the men that were making it; it seemed to take
on a being of its own, a volition of its own, and the mightiest
cricketers in the land looked as though they were in the grip
of a power of which they could feel the presence but whose
ends they could not understand. As events rushed them to
crisis even MacLaren, Ranjitsinhji, Trumper, Noble, and
Darling - most regal of cricketers - could only utter: 'Here
we do but as we may; no further dare.' The game, in Kipling's
term, was more than the player of the game.
The match was designed, surely, by the gods for their
sport. Even the victors were abominably scourged. On the
second day, when the issue was anybody's, Darling played an
innings which, as things turned out, must be said to have won
Australia's laurels as much as anything else. Australia in their
second innings had lost 3 wickets - those of Trumper, Duff,
and Hill - for 10 runs and now possessed an advantage
worth no more than 47. Under a sky of rags, the fitful and
sinister sunlight coming through, Darling let all his superb
might go at the English attack. His hitting had not the
joyfulness of mastership in it; its note was desperation. He
plainly felt the coils of circumstance about him; he plainly
was aware of the demon of conflict that had the game in grip.
And the defiant action of his bat was like a fist shaken at the
unfriendly heavens. It was in this innings of Darling's that the
gods played their first cruel trick. For with Darling's score
only 17 he was impelled to sky a ball to the deep field - a
high but easy catch. And who was the wight that the ironic
powers had decreed should shoulder the responsibility of
taking that crucial catch? His name was Tate - Tate of
Sussex, a kindly fellow who never did harm to a soul. The
humour of the gods really began when this cricketer was
asked to play for England instead of George Hirst. Tate was a
capital bowler, but as soon as he was seen in the company of
the great the question went out: 'What is he doing in this
galley?'.Tate had not the stern fibre of character that can
survive in an air of high tragedy; his bent was for pastoral
comedy down at Horsham. Tate missed the catch, and never
looked like holding it. As he stood under the ball, which hung
for a while in the air - an eternity to Tate - and then dropped
like a stone, his face turned white. Darling survived to make
37 out of a total of 86. Had Tate held the catch Australia
could hardly have got a score of more than 50, for Lockwood
and Rhodes, that Friday afternoon, bowled magnificently.
Yet when Tate laid himself down to rest in the evening, can
he not be imagined as saying to himself: 'Well, it's nearly all
over now, and as far as Tate of Sussex is concerned, the worst
must have happened. I never asked to play for England - they
thrust greatness on me - and I'll be well out of it this time
tomorrow, back to Brighton, and who'll remember my
missed catch after a week? What's a muff in the field in a
cricketer's career - everybody makes them.' If Tate did
console his spirit in this way the poor man did not know he
was born. The gods had not finished with him; the next day he
was to be put on the rack and have coals of fire heaped on his
head.
On the Saturday England were left with 124 to get for
victory. A tiny score - with the cream of batsmanship at hand.
But there had been five hours of rain in the night, and Trumble
and Saunders were bowling for Australia. Still, England
seemed nicely placed at lunch; the total 36 for none and
MacLaren and Palairet undefeated. The crowd took its suste-
nance light-heartedly; everybody lived at ease in a fool's
paradise as rosily lighted as Tate's. Here, again, was the
humorous touch of the gods: men that are taken suddenly out
of contentment are the more likely to writhe in Gehenna. After
lunch the sun got to work on the wicket, and straightway
Palairet was bowled by an intolerable break from Saunders.
Tyldesley came in, and, with MacLaren, the game was forced.
The play of these two batsmen gave the crowd the first hint
that all was not yet settled in England's favour, for it was the
play of cricketers driven to desperate remedies. The runs, they
seemed to say, can only be got if we hurry; there's the sun as
well as Trumble and Saunders to frustrate. Tyldesley jumped
to the bowling; he hit 16 runs in quick time before he was
caught in the slips. England 68 for 2 - 56 wanted now. And,
said the crowd, not yet sniffing the evil in the wind, only 56,
with Ranji, Abel, Jackson, Braund, and Lilley to come, to say
nothing of Rhodes and Lockwood. Why, the game is Eng-
land's! Four runs after Tyldesley's downfall MacLaren was
caught by Duff in the long field. An indiscreet stroke, yet
whose was the right to blame the man for making it? It had
come off time after time during his priceless innings of 35, and
England could not afford to throw a single possible run away.
MacLaren had played like a gambler at a table - not looking as
though he were making runs, but rather as one who had ample
boundaries at his bat's end to bank on every throw of the dice.
Abel and Ranji were in when at last the multitude unmistak-
ably saw the evil day face to face. For what sort of a Ranji was
this? Palsy was on him. You could have sworn that he shook at
the knees. It looked like Ranji; his shirt rippled in the wind
even as it did on that day at Old Trafford six years earlier than
this, the day on which he conjured 154 runs out of the
Australians. Yes, it looked like Ranji - the same slight body,
the same inscrutable, bland face. Alas! the spirit had gone -
here was a deserted shrine. Thousands of eyes turned away
from Ranji and looked to Abel for succour. Ah, this is better -
the pertness of little Abel lightened the soul. He made gallant
runs - a boundary over Hill's head. 'Cheeky' work this -
batsmanship with gaminerie . 'Bravo, Bobby!' shouted the Old
Trafford crowd. At 92 Ranji was out, leg before wicket to
Trumble. Well, the sophist crowd told itself, that was bound to
happen; he never looked good for any at all. But 5 runs more
and Trumble bowled Abel. England 97 for 5 - 27 needed. 'It's
quite all right,' said a parson on the half-crown stand; 'there's
really no cause for anxiety. To doubt the ability of Jackson,
Braund, Lilley, Lockwood, and Rhodes to get a paltry 27 runs
would be scandalous. Besides, I do believe that fellow Tate is a
batsman - he has an average of 16 for Sussex.' The century
went up with cheers to herald it - the crowd made as much of
joyful noise as it could, presumably in the hope that cheering
would put a better face on the scoring-board. Jackson, who
made a century in the first innings, scored seven in his best
'parliamentary' manner - neat, politic runs. Then he was
caught by Gregory, and now the cat was indeed out of the bag;
sophistry passed away from the heaped-up ranks. 'Who'd 'a'
thowt it?' said a man on the sixpenny side. Who, indeed? At
that very moment of agony at Old Trafford, people far away in
the city read in the latest editions, 'England 92 for 3', and
agreed that it wasn't worth the journey to Old Trafford, that it
had been a good match, that the Australians were fine sports-
men, and jolly good losers.
Sixteen runs - four good boundaries or four bad ones -
would bring the game into England's keeping when Lilley
reached the wicket.
He was frankly and unashamedly in some slight panic. He
hit out impetuously, as who should say: 'For the Lord's sake
let it be settled and done with quickly.' Braund was
overthrown at 109, and Lockwood made not a run. Lilley
lashed his bat about like a man distraught. Rhodes is his
companion now, and stands on guard ever so cool. Eight runs
will do it, and 'There goes four of them!' affirms the red-hot
crowd as Lilley accomplishes a grand drive into the deep.
'Well hit, sir!' shouts our parson. 'Nothing like taking your
courage in both hands against these Australian fellows. Well
hit, sir!' Clem Hill is seen running along the boundary's edge
as though the fiend were after him. Trying to save the four, is
he? - even from as certain a boundary hit as this!
Extraordinary men, Australians; never give anything away.
Hill, in fact, saved the boundary in the most decisive manner
in the world by holding the ball one-handed before it pitched.
The impetus of his run carried him twenty yards beyond the
place where he made the catch - a catch which put
incredulity into the face of every man and woman at Old
Trafford that day. 'A sinful catch,' said the parson. Tate, the
last man in, watched Rhodes ward off three balls from
Trumble, and then rain stopped play. Yes, rain stopped play
for forty minutes - and England eight runs short of triumph
with the last men in. But though it was heavy rain there was
always a bright sky not far away - another piece of subtle
torture by the gods, for nobody could think that the weather
was going to put an end to the afternoon. It would clear up
all right in time; the agony had to be gone through. The
crowd sat around the empty field, waiting, but hardly daring
to hope. The tension was severe. Yet surely there were calm
minds here and there. Why, under a covered stand sat two
old gentlemen who were obviously quite indifferent to the
issue. One was actually reading to the other the leading
article from one of the morning papers. Moreover, he was
reading it in a controlled and deliberately articulated voice.
'Sir M. Hicks-Beach argued yesterday,' he read, 'that even if
Ireland was overtaxed in 1894, its grievance was less today,
because taxation had not increased quite so rapidly in Ireland
as in the United Kingdom.' And the other old gentleman, so far
was he from troubling his head needlessly over a mere cricket
match, promptly took up the points in the argument, and he
too spoke in a perfectly controlled and deliberately articulated
voice. 'Two wrongs', he commented, 'do not make a right.'
Excited about England and Australia? Not a bit of it, sir! We
trust we are old and sensible enough to put a correct valuation
on a game of cricket.
In the pavilion Tate was dying a thousand deaths. All
depended on him - Rhodes was safe enough. In his head,
maybe, notions went round and round like a wheel. 'You've
only to keep your bat straight,' he might well have said to
himself time after time. 'Don't even move it from the block-
hole. I've heard tell if you keep your bat quite still it's a
thousand to one against any ball hitting the wicket.' . . . At six
minutes to five the Australians went into action again. Saun-
ders bowled at Tate - a fast one. Tate saw something hit the
ground and he made a reflex action at it. Click! Tate looked
wildly around him. What had happened? A noise came to him
over the wet grass, sounding like a distant sea. The crowd was
cheering; he had snicked a boundary. Another snick like that
and the game is England's and Tate safe for posterity ! The ball
was returned from the ring, and Darling slightly but impress-
ively rearranged his field, the while Saunders bent down to a
sawdust heap. Bloodless, calculating Australians they were.
Tate got himself down on his bat once more, and the wheel in
his poor head went round faster and faster. '. . . Bat straight . . .
don't move . . . can't hit wicket . . . block-hole . . . don't move.
... Bat straight ... can't hit wicket....' And the gods fooled
him to the top of his bent - to the last. Saunders's fourth ball
was not only good enough for Tate's frail bat; it was good
enough for the best bat in England. It was fast through the air
and - it was a shooter. It broke Tate's wicket, and, no doubt,
broke Tate's heart and the heart of the crowd.
In twenty minutes Old Trafford was deserted save for one
or two groundsmen who tended to the battlefield. The figures
on the scoreboard had revolved, obliterating all records of
the match from the face of it, which now looked vacantly
over the grass. The gods had finished their sport - finished
even with Tate. Yet not quite. A week later, on the Saturday
afternoon following this, Tate met the Australians again in
his beloved Sussex, and he was graciously permitted to play
an innings of 22 not out against them - and a capital inning
at that.
NEVILLE CARDUS
Days in the Sun
(1924)
*******************************************************************************
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Samuel Mallinson
[stuff deleted]
>the rest without further loss. And the WI kept their position as the #1
>test cricket playing nation, still undefeated after all these years (in a
>series). All really due to one bowling spell from a man who many felt at
deficient memory?
Cheers,
Sam Mallinson
s...@ccadfa.cc.adfa.oz.ua
Sadiq Yusuf
I think that was 1980 or so, that's about 12 years ago ! Surely,
unbeaten for 12 years in a test series qualifies the team to be #1 in the
world, specially as no other team has gone undefeated in that time ?
Sadiq [ remorseless logician ] Yusuf