Spirit On The Water (17 page)

Before every ball Phil Mead received he would turn to square leg, touch his cap peak four times, then tap his bat four times at the crease before taking four small shuffling steps forward. He would no doubt be delighted to know that he is fourth in the all time run makers table with 55,061 runs and no chance of anyone ever overtaking him. If an impatient bowler attempted to bowl before he had completed his ritual, he simply held up his hand, stopped him in his run up and went through the whole performance again. Jonathan Trott, eat your heart out!

Only Jack Hobbs scored more than Patsy Hendren’s 170 first-class centuries and only Hobbs and Woolley improved on his career aggregate of 57,611 runs. He was an exciting aggressive batsman, fearless against fast bowling. Hendren was similar in style to Denis Compton who joined him in the Middlesex side in 1937 at the end of Hendren’s career. True to his Irish ancestry, he was the life and soul of any touring party. He was an entertaining player and
a humorous companion who helped make the 1928/29 tour of Australia a happy and successful one

With Douglas Jardine also in the side, which was led by the dashing bon viveur Percy Chapman, there was a lot of batting competition for the twenty-five year old Walter Hammond making his first tour of Australia. Chapman, an amateur of course, was a popular captain. There was harmony within the England camp both on and off the field. Chapman was an inspirational fielder and hard-hitting middle-order batsman. Amateurs and professionals mixed as equals in his team – not always the case at country or county level. Fun was had by all off the field, as well as hard endeavour on it (although it is unlikely that Jardine would have admitted to having fun in Australia.) It helped of course that most of the games were won.

The games in that Test series were ‘timeless’ matches. This must be one of the reasons why so many players from before the Second World War have higher Test batting averages than their modern day equivalents. There was much less pressure on batsmen to move the score along. Other reasons could be the attacking fields that were set and often kept in place for most of the day. If you were good enough to survive as a batsman you got good value for your shots. In addition, although there were some exceptional fielders at the time, the overall standard of fielding was not as high as it is today. Fast bowlers did not feel so inclined to throw themselves around trying to save runs. However, set against these advantages, pre Second World War batsmen had to cope with uncovered pitches and there were no games against any ‘weaker’ Test nations.

England only needed five days to beat Australia in the First Test at Brisbane. They scored 521 in the first innings, Patsy Hendren top scoring with 169 and Harold Larwood rather surprisingly next
best with 70. Larwood went on to take 6 for 32, the best figures of his Test career, as the Australians were bowled out for 122. Chapman did not enforce the follow-on and England reached 342 for 8 on the fourth day when he declared.

This was the first ever declaration in a Test in Australia, with ‘timeless’ matches there was little incentive to do so, but Chapman probably thought his team could defend a lead of 741. He was right. With two of the team unable to bat – Kelleway had food poisoning and Gregory a knee injury – Australia were shot out for only 66.

Don Bradman, playing in his first Test, scored 18 and 1 and was dropped for the next match. Phil Mead top scored in England’s second innings with 73 but was also dropped and George Geary, a bowler, brought in for the rest of the series. Wally Hammond made a limited contribution with the bat and got no wickets but he kept his place.

The next Test was played at Sydney. Jack Hobbs celebrated his forty-sixth birthday during the game. He was presented with a ‘shilling fund’ collection organised by an Australian newspaper and escorted round the ground to the acclaim of the 58,000 crowd. This is surely a tradition that should be revived. For instance, Alastair Cook’s birthday is on Christmas Day (insert your own joke here about being England’s saviour). What a nice touch it would be to give the occupants of the Hill (now redeveloped and called the Victor Trumper Stand) an opportunity to show their appreciation of Cook’s talents.

At the Second Test in 1928, Wally Hammond must have thought it was his birthday too. He scored a majestic 251 out of England’s total of 636. This remained England’s highest ever total in Australia until the 644 in the 2011 Test at Sydney. It was Hammond’s first century for his country.
The Sydney Morning
Herald
(an Australian newspaper please note) declared that “figures cannot convey the charm and variety of his strokes. It is doubtful if there is a player in the world from whom the ball travels with more pace.”

Hammond had transformed himself from a free-flowing, stylish and sometimes impulsive batsman into a more responsible, balanced and mature player. He cut out the hook completely because of the risk inherent in the shot. He still attacked the bowling but his shots were predominantly drives in the V between mid-wicket and cover point. He was so powerful and such a perfect timer of the ball that he was able to score prodigiously despite limiting his range of strokes.

George Geary had earlier justified his inclusion in the team by taking 5 for 35 and helped to bowl out Australia for 253 in their first innings. When they batted again, Woodfull and Hendry both scored centuries and put on 215 for the second wicket but Australia were eventually all out for 397. Percy Chapman reversed the batting order and England lost 2 wickets getting the 15 runs they needed to win. This could not disguise the fact that Australia had been hammered once again and England were two up in the series.

Ponsford had retired hurt when hit by a rising ball from Larwood in the Second Test and Bradman had come on as a sub to field in his place. For the Third Test at Melbourne, Bradman was back in the side. He scored 79 out of a total of 397 when Australia won the toss and batted first.

The Hammond/Bradman rivalry was at a very nascent stage but Wally Hammond made sure he stayed well ahead on points by scoring another double hundred when England batted. He scored exactly 200 out of a total of 417.

His performance in the previous Test at Sydney had earned him a ‘shilling fund’ collection organised by the
Sydney Sun
. As
a young professional, Hammond would have been glad of the money. Now the Australian newspapers were getting concerned that such a relatively inexperienced batsman was dominating their bowling so easily.

Not to be outdone, Bradman scored a century in the Australian second innings total of 351 but England won the match when they reached 332 for 7. Herbert Sutcliffe took the honours for England with a century; Hammond was run out for 32. The ‘timeless match’ format benefited England as, this time, the game lasted into the seventh day.

The tourists now had an unassailable 3 – 0 lead and had retained the Ashes. Wally Hammond had established himself as a star in the eyes of the Australian public. Cricket spectators were not quite so partisan in those days. They obviously wanted their team to win but were more likely than today’s supporters to appreciate high-quality play whoever produced it.

Ideally of course, the Australian crowd wanted a hero of their own and in the next Test they got one. The Fourth Test at Adelaide saw the most exciting game in the series. In this match, Australia found their batting star, but it wasn’t Bradman ........ yet.
Nineteen-year
-old Archie Jackson scored 164 on his Test début. His elegant composure and creative stroke play marked him out for greatness. Born in Scotland and brought to Australia as a child, Jackson had a delicate physique and poor health. He played in only eight Test matches and died of tuberculosis at the age of twenty-three. He was a truly gifted player and those who saw him bat were convinced of his potential to be one of the greats.

Hammond once again was England’s champion, scoring a century in both innings. Australia more or less gave up trying to get him out and instead concentrated on restricting his run scoring and getting at the other batsmen. Hammond’s second
innings of 177 was a masterpiece and set up the exciting finish. The only other contributions of note were Douglas Jardine with 98 and Maurice Tate a quick fire 47. Australia needed 348 to win and could take as long as they liked to get them.

In the first innings, Jackson had lost his opening partner Woodfull for 1, then Hendry had gone for 2 and finally Kippax for just 3 runs. To lose three experienced players with only 19 runs on the board, made his innings of 164 even more remarkable. The second time around, Jackson and Woodfull put on 65 in just under two hours before the young débutant was caught behind for 36.

The Australian innings progressed steadily and at 320 for 7, with Bradman at the wicket and only 28 needed, they were favourites to win. Then Oldfield played the ball to Jack Hobbs in the covers and called Bradman for a run. Maybe Oldfield thought that the
forty-
six-year-old Hobbs would be tired after seven days of play? Maybe later in his career, Bradman would have sent Oldfield back? As it was, Bradman responded and was run out by an accurate throw from Hobbs.

It was the deciding moment of the match. Jack ‘Farmer’ White,
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the slow left-armer from Somerset, went on to get the next two wickets to add to the six he already had in the innings and England won by 12 runs. White bowled 124.5 overs in the game and took a total of thirteen wickets. England were 4 – 0 up and Hammond had scored 779 runs in five successive innings. In the Fourth Test, he had been on the field for nearly twenty-seven hours. Little wonder that he wasn’t able to bowl quite as much as some people would have liked.

The last Test match in the series took place back at Melbourne.
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It started on the 8
^th
March, 1929 and carried on till the 16
^th
March. For England, Herbert Sutcliffe and the captain, Percy Chapman, were injured. Maurice Leyland and Ernest Tyldesley who took their places were both very fine players and more evidence of England’s strength in depth when it came to batting. Jack White took over the captaincy.

England won the toss and chose to bat. Jack Hobbs scored the last of his twelve centuries against Australia and Maurice Leyland chalked up his first. Jardine was the new opening partner for Hobbs and he gave evidence of his famous obduracy by scoring 19 off 126 balls. Hammond ‘failed’, only scoring 38 and England were all out for 519.

Woodfull and Bradman both got centuries as Australia accumulated 491 at less than two runs an over. Two scores of around 500 at a relatively slow rate would make a draw a near certainty these days but this was a fight to the finish. When England batted again, Jardine was out first ball and the tourists struggled to a total of 257. Hobbs top scored with 65 but once again Hammond missed out. Australia only needed 286 to win and were in with a chance to salvage some pride from the series.

Wally Hammond now showed what he could do with the ball when he wasn’t too tired from scoring centuries and took 3 for 53 off twenty-six overs. However, Jack Ryder, the Australian captain, and Don Bradman saw their side home with 5 wickets to spare. The ‘whitewash’ had been avoided.

Hammond had scored 905 runs, by some way a record for a Test series. He was not to know that it would be beaten so soon, by Bradman when the Australians visited England the following year. They remain the only two players to have scored over 900 runs in a series. A rivalry between the two cricketers continued
up to the outbreak of the Second World War and resumed after it. Hammond had undoubtedly had the better of the 1928/29 tour but Bradman took the honours when the Australians toured in 1930 and in every Ashes series in which they both competed thereafter.

The 1928/29 tour saw Jack Hobbs pass on the mantle of England’s greatest batsman to Wally Hammond. Hobbs was universally loved, referred to as ‘the Master’ and in 1953 became the first professional cricketer to be knighted. Hammond, on the other hand, remained an enigma to most of his fellow players, was admired rather than loved and received no honours at all (even Paul Collingwood got an MBE just for turning up at the Oval in 2005.)

A few days after returning from Australia in April 1929, Hammond married Dorothy Lister. By all accounts she was homely and good natured but no oil painting. She was the daughter of a cricket loving, wealthy textile merchant from Yorkshire. In truth, Hammond did not know her very well; it was a case of fame meets brass. Mrs. Merton’s question to Debbie McGee springs to mind: “What was it that first attracted you to the millionaire Paul Daniels?”

She certainly wasn’t the sort of woman that Hammond was normally attracted to. They had very little in common and the life of a professional cricketer would put pressure on even the happiest marriage. It is only relatively recently that players fly back in the middle of a Test series to be at the birth of their child. Nowadays, it is common practice for wives and children to join players on tour for Christmas and so on. In Hammond’s day, a tour to Australia meant over six months away from home.

It seems that Hammond ‘played away’ a lot until he met Sybil Ness-Harvey in South Africa when he was captain of England on
the tour of South Africa in 1938. She was beautiful and they fell in love. During the Second World War, Hammond was stationed at Cairo for a number of years and he flew down to Durban whenever he could. Later he was posted to South Africa which made things even easier.

Wally Hammond had finally found the woman he wanted to be with. They resolved to be married after the war ended and he had arranged for his divorce to go through. First though, Hammond was posted back to England in 1944. He was stationed at Regent’s Park and conveniently had an office at St. John’s Wood. Some of the buildings and area around Lords had been requisitioned by the RAF and Squadron Leader Hammond trained cadets there.

He also had the chance to play some cricket. Many games were played at Lords in the summer of 1944. It was seen as a morale boost for the public. On Whit Monday, a crowd of 30,000 saw England play Australia (effectively The Royal Australian Air Force). The one-day matches laid on in 1944 were hugely popular with the players and public alike. It makes you wonder why it took cricket another twenty years to realise the potential of this form of the game.