Victory Tests
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The Victory Tests were a series of cricket matches played in England from May 19 to August 22, 1945, between a combined Australian Services XI and an English national side. The matches were played less than two weeks after the end of World War II, and were embraced by the public of England as a way to get back to their way of life from before the war. Cricket is a team sport played between two groups of eleven players each. ... Royal motto: Dieu et mon droit (French: God and my right) Englands location within the UK Official language English de facto Capital London de facto Largest city London Area - Total Ranked 1st UK 130,395 km² Population - Total (2001) - Density Ranked 1st UK 49,138,831 377/km² Ethnicity... May 19 is the 139th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (140th in leap years). ... August 22 is the 234th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (235th in leap years), with 131 days remaining. ... 1945 was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ... World War II was a truly global conflict with many facets: immense human sacrifice, fierce indoctrinations, and the use of new, extremely devastating weapons—the atom bomb being the ultimate. ...
The matches are known as the "Victory Tests", but they were never given full Test match status by the participating Boards of Control, because the Australian Cricket Board feared their side was not strong enough to compete with a near Test-strength England, so the games were limited to first class status instead. Test cricket is the longest form of the sport of cricket. ...
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In all, the teams played five three-day matches, two of which were won by each side with one draw, resulting in the series being declared a tie. 367,000 people attended the matches at Lord's (three matches), Old Trafford and Bramall Lane (one each), with the final game at Lord's attracting a then-record 93,000 people for a single three-day match. The Media Centre at Lords Cricket Ground Lords Cricket Ground is a cricket ground in St Johns Wood in London. ...
Old Trafford cricket ground has been the home of Lancashire County Cricket Club since 1856. ...
Bramall Lane is a football stadium in Sheffield, England that has successively been the home first of Sheffield F.C. and since 1889, of Sheffield United F.C.. It was also used for some games in the 19th century by Sheffield Wednesday F.C.. It is the oldest major football...
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The Australian Services XI
The Australian side was an amalgam of an RAAF XI, which had already been stationed in England during the war, and another group of mostly AIF soldiers from Australia. The players were deliberately stationed with each other in England for the express purpose of forming a cricket team to tour the country, with Australian prime minister John Curtin pushing for the immediate resumption of international cricket after the war was over. The team was officially a military unit, led by Squadron Leader Stan Sismey, the team's wicket-keeper. The RAAF Roundel is based on that of the British Royal Air Force, with the central circle replaced by a Kangaroo, a symbol of Australia. ... The Australian Imperial Force (AIF) was the name given to two all-volunteer Australian Army forces dispatched to fight overseas during World War I and World War II. Following Federation in 1901, Australia had a very small regular army and reservists in the Australian Citizens Military Forces could not be... A prime minister may be either: the chief or leading member of the cabinet of the top-level government in a country having a parliamentary system of government; or the official, in countries with a semi-presidential system of government, appointed to manage the civil service and execute the directives... Rt Hon John Curtin John Curtin (January 8, 1885 – July 5, 1945), Australian politician and 14th Prime Minister of Australia, led Australia through the darkest period of its history: when the Australian mainland came under direct military threat during the Japanese advance in World War II. Many Australians regard him... A Squadron Leaders sleeve/shoulder insignia Squadron Leader is a senior commissioned rank in the Royal Air Force and the air forces of many other Commonwealth countries. ... A wicket keeper in characteristic position, ready to face a delivery. ...
Only one player in the side, future Test captain Lindsay Hassett, had any previous Test match experience, and the rest of the side was made up mostly of Australian Sheffield Shield players. Cricketing great Keith Miller, at the time only considered a promising batsman with Victoria, played what many consider to be his 'breakout' series in the Victory Tests, ensuring that when he returned to Australia he would have a place in the Australian national team now referred to as the Invincibles. Arthur Lindsay Hassett (born August 28, 1913 in Geelong, Victoria - died June 16, 1993 in Batemans Bay, New South Wales) was an Australian cricketer. ...
The Pura Cup (formerly known as the Sheffield Shield) is the domestic first class cricket competition in Australia. ...
Keith Ross Miller (born 28 November 1919, died 11 October 2004, Melbourne, Australia) was a famous Australian Test cricketer and World War II pilot. ...
Captain of the Invincibles Don Bradman The Invincibles is the nickname of the 1948 Australian Cricket team, captained by Don Bradman that toured England in that year. ...
Graham Williams, the team's main strike bowler, had only been released from a German prisoner of war camp weeks before the series started, and played at 31kg below his pre-war playing weight. In between overs he drank glasses of glucose and water to keep his energy up, but when he was unable to bowl Miller took his place and demonstrated what a valuable pace bowler he would become in the future himself. Geneva Convention definition A prisoner of war (POW) is a soldier, sailor, airman, or marine who is imprisoned by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict. ...
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Water (from the Old English word wæter; c. ...
Fast bowling, sometimes known as pace bowling, is a technique used for bowling in the sport of cricket. ...
The Australian team, despite being split by rank and service, all took their place in the side in good spirit and not much was made of the fact that Hassett, a warrant officer who was outranked by almost every other member of the team, was appointed captain. A warrant officer (WO) or a chief warrant officer (CWO) is a member of a military organization, with a rank subordinate to other commissioned officers and senior to noncommissioned officers. ...
The English side
The English side's batting line-up was strong enough to be considered Test-strength, with players like Len Hutton, Wally Hammond, Les Ames, Bill Edrich and Cryil Washbrook, all of whom played Test cricket for England. Hutton held the record for the highest individual Test innings at the time with the 365 not out that he scored against Australian in 1938, and Hammond boasted 7,249 Test runs at an average of 58.45 over his career, despite being over 40 by the time the Victory Tests were played. For more coverage of cricket, go to the Cricket portal. ... Walter Reginald Hammond (June 19, 1903 - July 1, 1965), often known as Wally Hammond, was an English cricketer, who played for Gloucestershire and England, primarily as a batsman, in a career that straddled (and was disrupted by) the Second World War. ... Leslie Ethelbert George Ames (born 3 December 1905 in Elham, Kent; died 27 February 1990 in Canterbury, Kent) was an outstanding wicket-keeper and batsman for the England cricket team and Kent County Cricket Club. ...
But although the English batting side was far superior to the Australians, they only managed to score over 300 runs in one innings for the entire Victory Test tour.
Their bowling was seen as their weakness, and indeed a lot of changes were made to the bowling attack throughout the series. It worked for the last match of the series, when Australia were kept to under 250 runs in both of their innings, but none of the bowlers - bar seam bowler Dick Pollard, who took 25 wickets in his four matches - were very consistent, or indeed selected with any regularity. George Pope took eight wickets in the second match, only to miss the third, and then came back to take six in the fourth match. This was perhaps a sign (or an early symptom) of the problems that were to come for the English national side, which could not come up with a world-beating bowling attack until many years later.
Results
First "Test"
England: 267 and 294
Australia: 455 and 4/107
Australia won by 6 wickets.
Second "Test"
England: 286 and 190
Australia: 147 and 288
England won by 41 runs.
Third "Test"
England: 254 and 164
Australia: 194 and 6/225
Australia won by 4 wickets.
Fourth "Test"
Australia: 388 and 4/140
England: 7 dec./468
Match drawn.
Fifth "Test"
Australia: 173 and 210
England: 243 and 4/141
England won by 6 wickets.
After the Victory Tests
Following on from the success of the tour of England, the Australian Services XI traveled through India and Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) for four months at the request of Australian external affairs minister Herbert Evatt, before returning to Australia to play against Sheffield Shield state sides. The gruelling schedule resulted in many players in the Services side playing well below their capabilities, and by the time they were back in Australia they were routinely beaten easily by the local teams. Rt Hon Dr H V Evatt Herbert Vere Evatt (April 30, 1894 - November 2, 1965), Australian jurist and politician (popularly known as Doc Evatt or H V Evatt) was born in Maitland, New South Wales, to a working-class family of Anglo-Irish origin. ...
However, the importance of the Victory Test tour as a whole cannot be understated, because it helped people get back to their normal lives after the war, and unearthed some of the great cricketers of the time.
References
- Wilson, Neil (Jul. 30, 2005). "Out of the Ashes". weekend, p. 8.
- Cricket Archive
- "The Sports Factor" report, from Radio National
