‘Bradman did not get his hundred.’
Eric Hollies
THE immediate post-war years are remembered for the genius of Denis Compton. The Middlesex and England batsman scored 3,816 runs in the summer of 1947. Still only 29, despite making his England debut a decade earlier, he seemed to herald an entertaining future. It is often forgotten that Compton was a more than useful chinaman bowler who took 622 first-class wickets. He had everything!
Sadly English cricket in general was not so keen to provide excitement. The Second World War depleted the game more in England than Australia, hence the latter’s easy Ashes wins in 1946/47 and 1948. As has been mentioned, the 1946 rule allowing a new ball every 55 overs was likely to hit leg-spinners and chinaman bowlers like Compton particularly hard. It cannot be a coincidence that, as the 1940s moved into the 1950s, the supply dried up.
‘I am still under the impression that so potent was the drug of the new ball,’ wrote Arthur Mailey, ‘that some modern captains would have laid both Barnes and O’Reilly aside when the new “pill” was due to leave the umpire’s pocket.’
The 1948 Ashes, in which Don Bradman’s ‘Invincibles’ beat Norman Yardley’s England 4-0, serves as an object lesson in how to mishandle leg spin. In the Headingley Test Australia scored 404 to win, then a record. Yardley’s only genuine bowling options were a battery of medium pacers, rookie off-spinner Jim Laker and Compton’s chinamen. As opener Arthur Morris and Bradman cruised to big hundreds, Yardley turned in desperation to Len Hutton to bowl his leg breaks. The Yorkshireman’s four overs went for 30 runs, laying bare the lack of resources at England’s disposal on a pitch which had deteriorated over several days of sunshine. It allowed the Australians to accelerate towards their total during the early stages of the run chase. Yardley was condemned for bowling Hutton. England’s best chance to win a match in a horrendously one-sided series was lost.
Bradman knew why. ‘I dislike being critical if it means being destructive, and I think little criticism is warranted here, but the one great error England made was in not having a leg-spinner like Wright or Hollies in the side,’ he wrote. ‘I still think we would not have made 250. No ball bowled is as difficult to handle as the one which leaves the bat and goes towards slips… It was in an effort to overcome this deficiency that Yardley used Hutton as a bowler, gave us most valuable runs and was roundly condemned for having done it.’
Yardley defended himself against ‘severe criticism’. ‘On a wearing wicket, we had no leg-spinners or slow left-armers with the exception of Denis Compton,’ he argued. ‘Hutton had bowled with good effect for Yorkshire on many occasions in such circumstances, and he might have got me a much-needed wicket.’ Yardley added that he had wanted to tempt the Australians to score more quickly to increase the chance of wickets.
‘Once again the situation demonstrated the folly of England taking the field in a home Test without a leg-spinner. How easy to be wise after an event. Yet the lesson of that day remains for future selections; a leg-spinner is essential, and his absence may in itself mean the loss of a game.’
Eric Hollies, by now in his mid-30s, was already a well-known figure in the game. In July 1948 he gave a talk on BBC Children’s Hour entitled ‘How I Learned Cricket’. Just to show not all change since this period has been for the worse, another item on the programme was ‘The Coloured Coons: A Children’s Darkie Minstrel Show’.
Not selected for England in the summer’s Tests thus far, Hollies played for Warwickshire against the Australians in August, taking eight wickets in the first innings, including Bradman bowled. He noticed that some of the visitors’ discomfort came from waiting to see the ball’s movement off the pitch, rather than studying it through the air – and that Bradman was among the ‘more confused’. He bowled Bradman a couple of googlies but held the delivery back after that. ‘I had the definite impression he was not “seeing” the ball from my hand (perhaps not even looking for it), but was playing the ball late and hurriedly off the pitch,’ he wrote.
Following England’s humiliating failure to defend a 400-plus target at Headingley, Hollies was called up for the Oval Test. Initially he was reluctant to take part. He told Warwickshire secretary Leslie Deakins he would rather play for the county. ‘The rubber had been settled, much of the interest seemed to have gone,’ he recalled, adding, ‘The only interest in the Oval Test seemed to centre around whether Bradman would get a century in his last Test match. However, the Warwickshire committee persuaded me to play – and Bradman did not get his hundred.’
Before the match Hollies discussed tactics with county captain Tom Dollery. He decided to base his approach on what had happened in the Warwickshire match, remembering that if called upon to bowl to him at the Oval he would ‘bowl the googly to him second ball, just in case he was expecting it off the first delivery’.
The moment came. England were abject in their first innings at the Oval, being dismissed for 52. In fact, the 55-over rule played into Australia’s hands throughout the season. Unlike the 1930s, when Clarrie Grimmett and Bill O’Reilly had been on the scene, Australia’s strength was now in its pace attack of Ray Lindwall, Keith Miller, Bill Johnston and Ernie Toshack. The constant promise of a new ball kept the speedsters sharp. Leg-spinner Doug Ring was not even called upon to bowl during the Oval carnage. English cricket had smacked itself and leg spin in general in the face.
Australia got to 117 by the time Hollies dismissed opener Sid Barnes, caught by wicketkeeper Godfrey Evans for 61. In came Bradman. Yardley and his men, sensing this was probably his last innings, unless the English batted far better second time around, raised their caps and gave three cheers. Hollies remembered Yardley turning to him beforehand and saying, ‘We’ll give him three cheers when he gets on to the square. But that’s all we’ll give him – then bowl him out.’
Bradman settled down, having taken his usual long walk to the crease to accustom his eyes to the light. The first ball Hollies bowled was a good-length leg break, which he defended.
It was now time to put the plan hatched with Dollery into action. The Don once again settled down and Hollies came in over the wicket. He turned his wrist around to bowl the googly. It landed just outside Bradman’s off stump. Bradman, who moved three-quarters of the way to the ball’s pitch, failed to smother it. The ball turned in and flew past his inside edge, or just tickled it, knocking into his middle and off stumps. He was out for a second-ball duck.
Surely this was not the way it was meant to end? Bradman’s dismissal meant he concluded his Test career with an average of 99.94 runs. Had he scored just four runs it would have been 100. There is no such thing as perfection when it comes to a batting average as, theoretically, a player could never be dismissed, leaving it at infinity. But we count in multiples of ten, probably because that is how many digits we have, therefore giving extra lustre to the 100 figure. Hollies’s success kept Bradman within the bounds of perceived humanity – just.
The googly, that cheeky ball Bernard Bosanquet had popularised almost half a century earlier, before the Australians had taken ownership, had come home.
‘That reception had stirred my emotions very deeply and made me anxious – a dangerous state of mind for any batsman to be in,’ Bradman recalled. ‘I played the first ball from Hollies though not sure I really saw it. The second was a perfect length googly which deceived me. I just touched it with the inside edge of the bat and the bail was dislodged. So in the midst of my great jubilation at our team’s success, I had a rather sad heart about my own farewell as I wended my way pavilion-wards.’
England were delighted. Wicketkeeper Evans saw Bradman off with the words, ‘Hard luck, mate.’ It was an ordinary man’s language, spoken to a would-be god. It was appropriate, as Hollies’s effort was one of ingenuity overcoming something other-worldly. Hollies was a man who made much of his own ordinariness. He did not enjoy the fuss over the Bradman dismissal but could regard it as a victory for the common man.
Hollies’s single act came in a match in which England were once again thrashed. It was a rearguard gesture, both in terms of the match and the position of leg-spin bowling. The next decade saw its reduction to near insignificance.