The ‘VICTORY’ TESTS 1945 ___ England v Australian Services A ball-by-ball record Compiled by Barry Valentine Member of the Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians From W.H. Ferguson’s running sheets 1 England v Australia: Victory Tests 1945 THE ‘VICTORY’ TESTS 1945 England v Australian Services INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................... 3 Sources ................................................................................................................... 5 FIRST TEST at Lord’s............................................................................................... 6 First Day – Saturday 19 May ................................................................................. 6 England First Innings ............................................................................................. 6 Australia First Innings.......................................................................................... 15 Second Day – Monday 21 May ........................................................................... 17 Third Day – Tuesday 22 May .............................................................................. 27 England Second Innings ...................................................................................... 27 Australia Second Innings ..................................................................................... 37 SECOND TEST at Bramall Lane, Sheffield ............................................................ 41 First Day – Saturday 23 June ............................................................................... 41 England First Innings ........................................................................................... 41 Australia First Innings.......................................................................................... 51 Second Day – Monday 25 June ........................................................................... 52 England Second Innings ...................................................................................... 57 Third Day – Tuesday 26 June .............................................................................. 64 Australia Second Innings ..................................................................................... 64 THIRD TEST at Lord’s ........................................................................................... 74 First Day – Saturday 14 July 1945 ....................................................................... 74 England First Innings ........................................................................................... 74 England First Innings [corrected version?] .......................................................... 84 Second Day – Monday 16 July ............................................................................ 93 Australia First Innings.......................................................................................... 93 England Second Innings .................................................................................... 100 Third Day – Tuesday 17 July ............................................................................. 105 Australia Second Innings ................................................................................... 108 FOURTH TEST at Lord’s ..................................................................................... 116 First Day – Monday 6 August ............................................................................ 116 Australia First Innings........................................................................................ 116 Second Day – Tuesday 7 August ....................................................................... 124 England First Innings ......................................................................................... 128 Third Day – Wednesday 8 August ..................................................................... 134 Australia Second Innings ................................................................................... 141 FIFTH TEST at Old Trafford ................................................................................ 146 First Day – Monday 20 August .......................................................................... 146 Australia First Innings........................................................................................ 146 England First Innings ......................................................................................... 151 Second Day – Tuesday 21 August ..................................................................... 156 Australia Second Innings ................................................................................... 159 Third Day – Wednesday 22 August ................................................................... 162 England Second Innings .................................................................................... 168 England Second Innings – Version according to Ferguson ............................... 172 EPITOME OF TEST SERIES ............................................................................... 174 Test Averages......................................................................................................... 175 Australia – Batting ............................................................................................. 175 England – Batting .............................................................................................. 176 2 Introduction INTRODUCTION As there is a celebration this summer of the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, I make available a complete ball-ball record of the 1945 Victory Tests (this is not available from Charles Davis who covers official Test Matches). I have completed this in relation to the five Tests between England and Australia, using the Ferguson running sheets (kindly scanned and e-mailed to me by Colin Clowes of the NSWCA Library) and English and Australian newspapers and books, including Mark Rowe’s The Victory Tests. (I would like to do the same for the England v Dominions Test at Lord’s on 25, 27, 28 August 1945. The home scorebook in the MCC Library is not detailed or accurate enough to enable a ball-by-ball record. The newspaper reports of the match are very short. I see that the Cricket Archive site states balls and minutes for each batsman in the match. Does anybody know of any source from which another scorebook or more detailed report of this match can be obtained?) The main sources from which the scores are reconstructed are the running sheets of the famous scorer and baggage master W.H. (Bill) Ferguson who covered every Test series between England and Australia from 1905 to 1953. His continuous record of the matches, done as play progressed and later entered in an official scorebook which was agreed with the home scorer, inserts details of times of all intervals and stoppages, and the order in which each over was bowled, with runs scored, byes, leg-byes, no-balls and wides in place. He gives the direction in which each run-scoring shot went, though this is in many cases rather approximate: a shot described as to “mid on” can be a straightish on drive or a pull to mid wicket. These are the models for the scoresheets later used and enhanced by Roy Webber, Arthur Wrigley and Bill Frindall. There are minor errors and inconsistencies, such as the unexplained change of ends by batsmen, which one has to try to correct, the golden rule being to reconcile any errors with the published score. The running sheets are the source here and are almost totally reliable. In a couple of cases where there seems to be irreconcilable differences between Ferguson and the published score I have given an alternative version in italic blue font. A word about Charles Davis. Living in Melbourne, he has for several years been travelling the world in search of Test and limited- over international match scorebooks and has engaged in the extraordinary task of putting these into ball-by-ball-record where possible and of constructing information on those Tests for which scorebooks no longer exist. I can verify that constructing a record of a Test from the scorer’s conventional scorebook entries is a very complex and intricate job. Even working from the Ferguson scorebook and/or running sheets can cause problems. Charles has worked his way up from 1876-77 to the 1980s so far and is carrying on from there. His work covers all Test matches between all countries, and can be seen on his website at www.sportstats.com.au. It is work which should have taken several lifetimes to perform. I met him in March 2018 when he received the award of “Statistician of the Year” at the AGM of the Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians, with snow falling outside on Derbyshire County Cricket Ground, and we have corresponded by e-mail since. Charles has confined his work to official Test matches. The subject of this work is the Victory Tests between England and Australian Services in 1945 which, for obvious reasons, were not accorded Test Match status and in which the Ashes were not at stake, but which were very popular and successful at the time and are fondly remembered today. The work to produce a ball-by-ball record of the 1945 matches therefore complements Charles’s work, rather than duplicating any part of it. Finally my thanks go to Colin Clowes of NSW CA whom I met when I was in Sydney in January 2018, and who has scanned the sheets and sent them