In issue five of The Nightwatchman, Rod Edmond sees parallels in this winter’s Ashes tour and that of 1958-59, when another supposedly fiery attack was put in the shade by the host’s quicks.
This article appears in issue five of The Nightwatchman. Available in print and digital editions.
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Somewhere in the archives is a photograph of five sharp-suited England fast bowlers threateningly posed on the deck of the Iberia as it docked at Sydney. The year is 1958 and the five well-dressed hoods looking for action are Trueman, Tyson, Statham, Loader and Bailey. They were the intended spearhead of Peter May’s team as it sought to win a fourth consecutive Ashes series. This photograph, coincidentally or not, was recreated on the cover of a recent issue of All Out Cricket.
James Anderson, tossing a cricket ball in his right hand, heads a phalanx of similarly besuited quickies: Finn and Rankin to his right, Tremlett and Broad to his left. These menacingly tall figures are to lead the attack of Alastair Cook’s team as it also seeks to win a fourth consecutive Ashes series. In both cases these formidable-looking combinations proved to be mere sheep in lion’s clothing.
I began thinking about the parallels between the Ashes tours of 1958-59 and 2013-14 while watching England’s double collapse in the second innings of the recent Melbourne Test (65-0 to 87-4, 173-5 to 179 all out). It brought vividly to mind the first Ashes Test I ever saw, at Melbourne Cricket Ground, 31 December to 5 January 1958-59. Trailing by 49 runs on the first innings, England collapsed for 87 in their second, destroyed by the pace of Ian Meckiff, the swing of Alan Davidson, and some superb close-wicket catching.
His mobility had not been helped by a knee injury, sustained while getting out of a deckchair on the voyage out, which prevented him playing in the early matches of the tour. This geriatric mishap proved to be an augury of the whole tour. No one actually went home early in 1958-9 but Trueman fell out with the manager and was threatened with being sent home. He was later to describe Brown as: “a snob … and a bigot.”
This tale of two Tests, and of two tours, is also a tale of four captains. PBH May (gentleman amateurs still had their initials in front of their surname on the scorecard, professionals after it, thus Trueman, F.) was overwhelmed by the inspirational Benaud. As England collapsed on that afternoon in Melbourne, each wicket was celebrated by the Australian captain running and embracing the bowler and fieldsman (eight of the wickets fell to catches, four of them quite brilliant). Benaud’s Gallic ebullience has long since become standard but he was, I think, the first Test captain to celebrate in such a manner.
Certainly the passion he generated was too much for the trail of incoming and quickly departing English batsmen on that hot afternoon. Benaud’s field placing and bowling changes were imaginative and adventurous. Graveney later spoke of the Australian captain’s “tactical genius”, and of how “he was a master at upsetting the concentration of batsmen and reaching their subconscious.” May, by contrast, captained by rote, his instinct to slow the scoring rate rather than take wickets, his bowling changes predictable, his tactics always behind the play.
For May and Benaud, read Cook and Clarke. Benaud had more obvious charisma than Clarke, but otherwise their styles of captaincy were similar. Both made things happen rather than waiting for them to happen. Both took risks. Both, at the peak of their careers, commanded the respect of their players. May and Cook, on the other hand, became lost and demoralised as defeat followed defeat, retreating into themselves. More than just the defeats were their manner.
A supremely fit-looking Australian team (Norman O’Neill, with a background in baseball, had a throw like a bullet, Harvey, Davidson and Benaud were world-class close fielders) took the initiative and kept it throughout. There were no tight finishes. Everything the Australians tried worked. Even the veteran fast bowler Ray Lindwall, recalled for the fourth Test, took wickets and went past Clarrie Grimmett’s record of 216 Test dismissals.
In both these series England were regarded as too powerful and balanced a combination for the home team. Even a cock-eyed optimist (and one-eyed commentator) like Glenn McGrath was predicting a mere 3-0 result for the home team (he did, however, also predict that Mitchell Johnson would be the man of the series). The statistics of both series are remarkably similar. In 1958-59 three Australian batsmen – McDonald (64.87), O’Neill (56.40), Harvey (48.50) – headed the batting averages for the series. May and Cowdrey were next, but after that the averages fell steeply away to Graveney (31.11), Richardson (20.25), Bailey (20.00) and Watson (18.00).
England’s bowling statistics were dire, the leading wicket-takers being Laker (15), Statham (12), Trueman (9) and Loader (7). Broad apart, England’s bowling in the recent series was also poor. Although batting collapses have been the main story, the bowlers’ inability to dismiss Australia’s lower order was equally the reason for the “whitewash” (McGrath’s description of this “whitewash” as the “icing on the cake” deserves a Colemanballs “journalist of the series” award). Anderson, with 14 wickets at 43.92, and 30 more overs than anyone else, has been treated much more kindly than Pietersen and Carberry.
Both these England teams were thought to be as strong as any to have left the country for many years, but finished the tour in disarray and facing the problem of rebuilding. Both these Australian teams, led by aggressive, imaginative captains, with a more relaxed and supple management behind them, and supported by enormous crowds with rediscovered belief in their own side, produced results that in prospect seemed most unlikely but in retrospect inevitable.
