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Heroes forever
V. GANGADHAR
ALLSPORT
Indelible impressions of the 1948 Ashes series ... the Australian team at Trent Bridge
IN the summer of 1948, an eight-year-old boy would wait to grab the newspaper and frantically turn to the sports pages. That was the beginning of my lifelong love affair with The Hindu. The Australian cricketers, under Don Bradman were touring England and I was keen to read despatches filed by former test player and cricket writer, Jack Fingleton, carried in the paper. Later its sister publication, Sports & Pastime serialised Fingleton's famous book Brightly Fades the Don, which was an account of the 1948 tour.
We were then in Tambaram, Madras, where I had been initiated into the game. Don Bradman's last tour of England left indelible impressions. The BBC did broadcast running commentaries on the game but we did not have a radio. I relied on Fingleton's despatches, which not only covered cricket but also told me many things about war torn England. Add to this the sketches of my favourite cricketers and their heroic performances.
With three stitches on his forehead and bleeding profusely after being hit by a Ray Lindwall bouncer, English batsman Dennis Compton scored a heroic 145 not out in the Manchester Test. Australian Neil Harvey, only 19 strolled into bat in his first test match at Leeds when his side was tottering at 65 for 3 with Don Bradman out. "What's going on here?" he asked his senior partner, Keith Miller at the other end. "Let's get into them". And Harvey did, with a majestic 112. In the final test at the Oval, England was bowled out for just 52 runs with Lindwall taking six for 20.
The performance of the 1948 team had been constantly debated among cricket lovers and most of them agreed it was the greatest team ever. Statistics do not tell the whole story but how can we forget the fact the fact the 1948 team went through the whole tour, unbeaten, winning convincingly 23 of the 31 matches played and drawing eight. The batsman hit 47 hundreds and 58 fifties as against seven hundreds and 41 fifties against them. In a single day, in the game against Essex, the Aussies plundered 721 runs!
I was lucky enough to watch some of them in action in India during the 1950s and 1960s. As a young boy, they were immortal to me. But that was not to be. My heroes were, alas, mortal and the media went on reporting the deaths of these great men. The Don died two years back but some of his teammates left the scene even earlier. If memory serves me right, the survivors today are openers Arthur Morris, Neil Harvey and the incomparable all rounder Keith Miller. He was a dashing RAF pilot, whose good looks and devil-may-care attitude brought crowds flocking to the cricket stadiums. Along with Ray Lindwall (alas, no more) Miller formed one of the deadliest fast bowling combinations of all times.
I was prompted to write this piece after the death of yet another hero of the 1948 heroes. This was Ernie Toshack of New South Wales and Australia; a left arm bowler who died last month aged 88. He had a definite role to play, to bowl tight, and keep runs down while the new ball was taken after every 55 overs.
Like most players of that era, Toshack enjoyed the game for very little money. The Don's Australians played hard and won often but unlike the present Australians were never boorish. Fingleton, in his despatches, narrated several delightful anecdotes. During a county match, opener Sidney Barnes chased and caught a dog scampering in the ground and presented it formally to the umpire, indicating jocularly that he was blind and, hence, needed a dog!
As for Toshack, at one of the boring formal dinners, Toshack was rolling a piece of bread with his fingers when the gentleman next to him asked him, "what would happen if you balled it to the Don?" Pat came the reply, "he'd hit it clean over the bakery!" Fingleton enjoyed Toshack's appealing and named him "The Voice". Toshack cut a comic figure while batting number 10 or eleven but was proud of his achievements of not scoring a zero during the entire tour! Obviously, no one batted for averages during those days but preferred to give enjoyment to the spectators. Another comic figure and left am bowler, Bill Johnstone batting at number 11, remained not out in all but one of his innings and once crossed 100 runs on the tour, his captain saw to it that he never went to bat so that he would get out and ruin his 100 plus batting average! That was cricket!
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