Greatest Test Match

I am going back to history and writing about the greatest cricket Test match ever played. This happened during  West Indies tour of Australia in the year 1960-61. Both Australia and West Indies showed the way the game could and should be played in a series that captured the attention and interest of record crowds in Australia and the imagination of cricket fans around the world. it was the 2 captains, Richie Benaud (Australia) and Frank Worrell (West Indies), who were quite rightly given the credit for the the series becoming one of the most unforgettable of all sporting occasion. Both were tough and Gentleman when the game of cricket was concern. It was reported that before the series Worrell told 2 things to his team mates, first one was, no batsman will ever questions the umpire’s decision & if batsman think he is out, he should walk without waiting for umpire’s call and secondly at the fall of wicket the next batsman should immediately leave pavilion and cross the dismissed batsman in the field only, to avoid loss of time. Captain of both the teams were known for their cricketing brain.

The  match was the first test played in Brisbane , Australia from Dec 9 to 14 in 1960. Readers please note that during those days test much used to have one day in between as rest day. One more thing in those days cricket in Australia was played with over having 8 balls, instead of 6 balls elsewhere. West Indies batted first and they scored 453 runs (Sobers 132, Worrell 65, Solomon 65, Alexander 60. Davidson 5/135). The beauty of West Indies batting was Sobers quick fire 132, people who watched his batting were of the opinion that they have never seen a batting like this. It was reported that one blind man who was listening radio commentary of the match, afterwards remarked that today I wished , I had a vision so that I could watch Sobers’ batting. Australia in their first innings replied with a total of 505 runs ( O’Neill 181, Simpson 93, Davidson 44. Wes Hall 4/140 ). By the time Australian inning ended the match was in 4th day. In their 2nd innings West Indies were all out for 284 runs (Worrell 65, Rohan Kanhai 54, Solomon 47. Davidson 6/87). On the final day when West Indies innings got over Australia were left out with  310 minutes to score 233 runs, which was quite achievable.  But Australia were in the trouble from the start of the inning, with Hall unleashing a fearsome spell of pace bowling to skittle out half the Australian side  for 57 runs, and when 6th wicket fell at 92 runs, it was evident that Australia will lose the match.

Then  the Skipper Richie Benaud joined Alan Davidson, and together they shared a stand of 134 runs for the 7th wicket. With 12 minutes left on the clock they were still together ( please note that in those days there were no mandatory overs in the last hour of the play) and only 7 runs were required for victory, that is the time when real drama started, Davidson was run out by the direct hit on the stumps by  Solomon from 25 yards distance on the leg side.

So when Wes Hall started the last over (8 balls) still 6 runs were needed with 3 wickets in hand. The first ball of Hall  hit Grout a painful blow on thigh and he  and Benaud scrambled for a leg bye. Hall was instructed by his captain, and his words were Wally do not bowl a no ball, otherwise you will not be able to face the fans at home and please do not bowl bouncer. But Hall had other idea, he thought Benaud is set batsman, so if you want to get him out you have to surprise him, and he disobeyed his captain and bowled a bouncer, Benaud really got surprised seeing a bouncer and he tried to hook the ball and only managed to get faint touch and catch went to wicket keeper, who held it comfortably. Now 6 balls left and 2 wickets remaining. 3rd ball of the over was played  for no runs and  from the 4th ball they got 1 bye. The 5th ball was skied by Grout, he and Meckiff crossed for single, Hall led a bunch of fielders in the chase for catch, but the ball bounced out from Hall’s hands. Now 3 balls, 3 runs and 2 wickets. Meckiff swung his bat at the next ball and sent it over the heads of close fielders towards leg, and as Hunte raced to collect the ball, the two batsman ran two runs and then made the decision to run  3rd run(winning run), meantime Hunte gathered the ball near square leg boundary and he threw directly to Wicket keeper, the throw came like arrow, which wicket keeper collected and whipped the bails with Grout inches away from the stumps. Now with 2 balls left, last man in and scores equal. Last man Kline hit the next ball to mid wicket and as he came charging down the wicket for winning run, again Solomon scored a direct hit on the stumps with astonishingly accurate throw considering he had one stump to aim. The picture above depicts the fall of last Australian wicket in 2nd innings, you can see ball has hit the stump and batsman is little short of crease.

The see saw events of the last over caused such a confusion that many people did not know whether match had been won by West Indies or it is won by Australia. It took discussions between scorers and umpires before it was confirmed officially that the match had finished as TIE.

After the match Richie Benaud commented ” Nobody who saw the final day of this match will ever forget it, and for all those of us lucky enough to participated in it, the memory of those exciting moments will live with us for ever. The match was a wonderful advertisement for the game, which was played in a sporting but competitive spirit with both team putting the accent of aggressive attacking cricket.’

Frank Worrell commented ‘ It would have been a pity for either team to have lost. It was perfect result. I kept telling our players to try to keep cool. We had to maintain total concentration right until the end. The throwing by Conard Hunte and Joe Solomon was magnificent, considering the pressure on them.”

Sir Donald Bradman, who saw this match remarked ” This test match without question will remain as the greatest test match ever played.”

There was no time wasting tactics from either of the team. If West Indies wanted they could have wasted time in arranging field and thus draw the match, and Australia could have played safely in the last few overs to draw the match. But nothing of that sort happened, and both team went for win.

Friends, many of you may not be born when this happened, even I was little over 11 years at that time, but I still remember reading about this tied test match in the newspaper.

Awaiting for your views/comments/feed backs on this blog, which happened to be my 300th blog.

Anil Malik

Mumbai, India

12th Sep 2018