CHAPTER TWELVE

Australia Bound

“We have every hope that he will emulate the doings in Australia of those great bowlers, Lohmann, Barnes and FR Foster.”

Pelham Warner

AS THE 1924 season ended it was time for the cricketing test: an Ashes series in Australia. Everything that cricket had to offer, Tate had dealt with easily in the two and a bit years since his conversion to pace. A trip down under was something else, though. Baking heat, batsman-friendly pitches, barracking crowds, eight-ball overs and Test matches with no time limit made the experience unlike any other for English tourists. The team were to spend six months away from home.

Kathleen gave birth to the couple’s first son, Maurice junior, shortly before the trip. With three children under the age of three in the house, her winter was set to be hard work.

It was with a sense of excitement and some foreboding that Arthur Gilligan’s MCC tourists met at London’s Victoria Station on Thursday 18th September 1924. Large crowds gathered on the concourse to wish the players well. Gilligan’s mother handed each of them a sprig of white heather for good luck, something the superstitious Tate would have appreciated. Fred Tate was also there to see his son off, as were Walter Brearley, who had noticed Maurice’s talent early on, and Sussex devotee Sir Home Gordon.

Gilligan had a strong squad, with Jack Hobbs, Herbert Sutcliffe, Frank Woolley, Andy Sandham, Percy Chapman and Patsy Hendren among the batsmen. Yorkshire’s Roy Kilner and Kent’s Alfred “Tich” Freeman were formidable spinners, while Surrey’s Herbert Strudwick was a superb wicketkeeper. One thing lacking, though, was pace. Ageing Essex all-rounder Johnny Douglas bowled some nice seam and Gilligan could still turn his arm over, despite his injuries. However, Tate occupied a lonely place as a true Test-class fast-medium man, despite England’s attempt to find speedsters to match Jack Gregory and Ted McDonald, who had stampeded through England back in 1921.

England had not won a Test against Australia since the final match of the unique triangular series, also featuring South Africa, back in 1912. Gilligan, while no tactical genius, was the ideal man to instil some morale among his men, and even some hope. “We are all looking forward to the trip immensely,” he said as the team boarded the train. “We will be a very happy party, whether we win or lose, and we will try to keep up the tradition of cricket.”

Tate was to recall his excitement, adding: “My only regret was leaving the family... for I am a highly domesticated man; but one has to go where one’s work is, and there are always the happy reunions to look forward to.” Despite his domesticity, Tate enjoyed the lighter side of the long journey aboard the Orient liner Ormonde, the boredom lessened by banter with team-mates and sightseeing.

The squad arrived in Ceylon for a match in the sweltering heat of Colombo, which MCC won. In mid-October they got to the Western Australian city of Perth, then even more isolated by distance than it is today. Crowds greeted them, with one wag giving the visitors their first taste of barracking, by shouting: “You’ll never get ’em out.” He had a point. It would certainly not be easy.

The writer of the Cricket Notes column in The Times feared what would now be called ‘burn-out’, saying: “In this connexion a word of serious warning is imperative. Except in case of dire necessity Tate must not be encouraged to get runs... I think Mr Arthur Gilligan should, in Australia, treat Tate as Mr [Plum] Warner treated [Wilfred] Rhodes in the brilliantly successful tour of 1903-04, putting him in last or last but one in the Test Matches, and so keeping him fresh for his all-important task of getting the other side out. On Tate’s chances rests our best chance of winning the rubber.” It was a marked contrast to four and a half years earlier, when Sussex had seriously considered asking Tate to give up bowling.

The first game of the tour, against Western Australia, was a rather jaded draw, with Tate taking two for nine and one for 21, as the home side followed on. But The Times noted that Gilligan and Tate had “already created a profound impression” through their jovial light-heartedness.

Australian leg-spinner Arthur Mailey predicted problems selecting a balanced side. “Gilligan will burn the midnight oil before he selects his first team,” he wrote, “unless he is prepared to enter the field without two of his four match-winning bowlers – Howell, Douglas, Tate and Gilligan – whereas if he includes these bowlers, he must omit outfield [meaning those with good throwing arms] batsmen like Sandham and Sutcliffe.”

Tate himself found the new environment difficult to adjust to, with the soft turf of England a very distant memory. The hard ground “seemed to throw me back instead of forwards, because there was no give”. He consulted Strudwick, a devout Christian dubbed the team’s “Father Confessor”, who said it would be OK after a bit of practice.

MCC thrashed Western Australia in a second game at Perth, with Tate getting three for ten in the second innings. At a civic reception, Gilligan introduced his Sussex colleague as having the “biggest feet in the county”. The local press misquoted him as saying they were the biggest in the “country” and, from then on, the Australians became obsessed with these parts of the Tate anatomy, which ended up having a considerable influence on the series.

By his third game, against South Australia in Adelaide, after a train journey of more than 1,500 miles, Tate was, true to Strudwick’s advice, starting to adjust. He had decided to bowl a yard shorter than in England to deal with the greater pace of the pitches. He took three for 63 in the match, as MCC won by nine wickets.

He was 12th man against Victoria and then it was off to Sydney to face the mighty New South Wales. It was here that the Australians got a true taste of Tate’s ability. In the first innings he took seven for 74, amid some poor weather, which he described as one of his ‘mad’ moments. Tate remembered Strudwick telling him afterwards: “I am so pleased Maurice. You’ve got your run-through all right now.”

Some pre-series banter must have made this achievement all the sweeter. Speaking before the New South Wales match, former Test captain Warwick Armstrong doubted whether Tate could prosper in Australia, going along with the view that only spinners who gave the ball a real rip and genuinely quick bowlers could succeed on the country’s pitches. His quality questioned, Tate had something to prove, saying afterwards: “I laughed. It doesn’t do to let that sort of thing get you down.”

One of those watching at Sydney was Armstrong’s contemporary and fellow ex-Australian captain, Monty Noble, who was producing an encyclopedic memoir of the tour, entitled Gilligan’s Men. He studied Tate as the new man took three wickets in an over: “I liked his style. He takes six swinging strides [Noble did not include the first two, shorter steps], and his action is beautiful. He lopes easily along, has the advantage of height, and the flexibility of his youthful muscles is evident. A flick of the wrist gives him swing and pace off the pitch...

“That he could get so much out of a fairly slow batsman’s wicket was a triumph, and old cricketers placed him high among bowlers, while the crowd, most of whom are content to judge by results, gasped with astonishment... On this first day of play I marvelled at the way Tate handled the wet ball.”

Noble went on: “Tate secured the majority of his [seven] wickets with a ball which, pitched shorter than his usual length, made pace off the pitch.” Something special had washed up on Australia’s shores.

Tate took another three wickets in the second innings, as MCC triumphed by three wickets. A draw against Queensland, in which Tate took five wickets, preceded the first Test, at the Sydney Cricket Ground. After a couple of days’ rest in Sydney, an over-keen Gilligan decided a course of physical jerks might help liven spirits and harden bodies for battle, despite the temperature being in the nineties. Tate remembered that most players could “scarcely walk” afterwards.

Almost 34,000 people crammed into the SCG on 19th December. The consensus was that the current Australian lot were not as good as Armstrong’s 1921 team and that England had improved. There might be a decent contest. Australia’s captain, Herbie “Horseshoe” Collins, so nicknamed because of his legendary luck as skipper and batsman, won the toss. He decided to bat on what looked like a belting pitch. Tate opened the bowling with Gilligan. First change, and on international debut, was leg-spinner Tich Freeman, the one bowler who consistently took more wickets than Tate at county level during the 1920s.

The right-handed Collins had clearly been thinking about how to play Tate and decided to face as much of his bowling as he could. His partner, the left-handed Warren Bardsley, also did his best to blunt him. On a broiling day, the ball was breaking both ways as the seam hit the hard pitch. Both men played and missed but Tate could not get them out. When Bardsley had scored 13, he was missed in the slips by Hendren off Tate. Perhaps the fears voiced about the frailty of England’s fielding a year before during Tate’s breakthrough Test trial game were being realised.

Gilligan looked far less effective at the other end and he replaced himself with Freeman. With the score on 46, Freeman dismissed Bardsley for 21. In came debutant Bill Ponsford, the brilliant Victorian right-hander who had hit the world’s highest first-class score, 429, the previous year. It was the fiercest introduction imaginable. Ponsford was almost bowled half a dozen times in the first two overs. He turned towards Strudwick to say: “I’ve never played against such good bowling before.” “No, it does not look as if you have,” the wicketkeeper replied.

Yet Ponsford, with Collins doing his utmost to shield him from Tate, managed to stay in. The bowler was not a happy man. Each time Tate narrowly missed bowling Ponsford, he put his hand on his head and looked up at the sky. One wag in the crowd shouted out: “It’s no good, Tate. HE won’t help you!”

Any divine inspiration was with Australia, rather than Tate, that day. Ponsford remembered being nonplussed by the style of bowling he was facing, rather like an English batsmen today being confronted by an effective leg-break/googly bowler. He claimed he had seen the ball well, but it then “fizzed through like a flat pebble off a millpond”, beating himself and the wicketkeeper to go for four byes. He was beaten again and again, the harder pitch making Tate’s bowling appear to come through even quicker than it did in England. Test batsman Jack Fingleton, who later became a journalist, wrote: “Maurice Tate, that day, almost shed tears of frustration because Collins wouldn’t let him ‘get at’ Ponsford.”

This was not his only cause for exasperation. When Collins was on 42, he was again dropped by Hendren, this time at mid-on. Gilligan tried all sorts of permutations, but Collins and Ponsford, with no time limit to the game, kept on accumulating. Collins worked his way to a well-earned hundred. Tate, however, was not amused, saying of that morning that he had never “bowled better in my life”, but without reward. Several lbw appeals against Collins were turned down and the ball frequently missed the off stump only narrowly. Tate labelled the umpiring “open to question”.

On the second day, with the Australians on 236, Tate finally got his first Ashes wicket. Collins, who had made 114 from 311 balls, was caught, Hendren at last managing to hang on to one. Collins and Ponsford had put on 190. Gilligan bowled Ponsford for 110 and there was some sense that England’s ordeal might be nearing its completion.

Leg-spinner Jack Hearne bowled South Australia’s Arthur Richardson and suddenly Tate’s figures began to improve. He had right-hander Johnny Taylor caught by wicketkeeper Strudwick to bring him a second wicket. Freeman bowled Victor Richardson, the grandfather of Greg and Ian Chappell, to bring the Australian score to 387 for seven. Tate then had Charles Kelleway caught at slip by Woolley for 17. Strudwick caught the all-rounder Hunter “Stork” Hendry off Tate for three, and paceman Jack Gregory suffered the same fate for a duck.

Tate had taken five wickets in his first Ashes bowling stint. It had been a painstaking effort, and it was not over yet. Wicketkeeper Bert Oldfield and last man Mailey put on an annoying partnership of 62. Tate eventually bowled Mailey for 21, leaving Oldfield stranded on 39 not out. Australia were dismissed for 450, fewer than they might have expected with Collins and Ponsford playing so well, but an above-par total even at batsman-friendly Sydney.

Tate’s figures are hard to comprehend. In all, he bowled 55.1 eight-ball overs. That amounts to 441 deliveries, or 73.3 six-ball overs. The weather was unremittingly hot and only Freeman completed anything like the same workload. Tate was phenomenal and thoroughly deserved his six wickets. With a bit of luck, and some decent fielding, he could have done half the work for a greater reward.

Tate’s frequent jerk back of the head in disbelief at his terrible luck had the Sydney fans in stitches. It was an unusually emotional display for an Englishman. One barracker shouted: “Don’t reach those clouds, Maurice; you’ll make it rain.” Already they had taken to Tate.

On the afternoon of the second day Hobbs and Sutcliffe came in for England. The pair put on 157, Hobbs in particular looking splendid. This was to be the main substance of the innings. After Sutcliffe went for 59, Hearne and Woolley fell cheaply. Hendren atoned somewhat for his dropped catches with an unbeaten 74, but those around him could not do the same. Hobbs went for 115, Chapman for 13, Tate for seven, Gilligan for one, Freeman for a duck and Strudwick for six. England had made 298 – a deficit of 152 runs.

Collins juggled Australia’s order in the second innings and Tate struck first, bowling out Bardsley for 22. Arthur Richardson, his partner, battled on, as Kelleway, at three, was bowled by Gilligan. The score had moved on to 168 by the time Freeman got rid of Richardson. Collins and Ponsford, at four and five this time, were together again. But Ponsford made only 27, out to Freeman.

Tate, his feet having taken a fearful pounding, was having trouble with his left big toe and not bowling with the same sting as normal. He and Woolley, who had a bad knee, were seen by a doctor during lunch on the fourth day. He recommended that Tate’s severely damaged toenail be removed to prevent infection. The Times said this was necessary “as Tate told him it was an affection [my italics] of some years’ standing which reappears annually”. Was the “newspaper of record” repeating a spoonerism on purpose or was it just a typographical error? Anyway, that afternoon a dust storm briefly stopped play, spreading wrappers and other rubbish across the ground. It was a long way from Hove.

Tate soldiered on through the pain and took two more wickets – Victor Richardson, for 18, and Collins, for a painstaking 60 – but the lower order did not collapse. Gregory went for two and Oldfield for 18. Number eight Taylor was still going strong against a tiring attack. With Mailey, he put on a spirit-sapping 127 for the last wicket. Tate eventually bowled Taylor for 108, leaving Mailey on 46 not out. His previous best in Test matches had been his 21 in the first innings. Australia were out for 452, but Taylor had apparently been caught off Gilligan with the innings total about 100 fewer. Tate still thought the umpiring open to question.

It was now almost the end of day five – Christmas Eve – as the England team trudged back to the pavilion. Tate had again worked hard, bowling 33.7 eight-ball overs to take five for 98. He had managed 11 wickets in the match. Altogether he had bowled 712 balls. This was the equivalent of 118.4 six-ball overs. It was a record for Test matches.

In the run-up to the series it had been noted that Gilligan was “carefully nursing” Tate for the big occasions. Once the real action started, the protection stopped. There was really no one else to put in the overs. Noble questioned this aspect of Gilligan’s captaincy. “Tate’s luck was shocking; he always looked dangerous – but why bowl a man to death when he only looks like getting wickets?” he asked. “It is only permissible to bowl a man to a standstill when he is getting them, and quickly too.” It was a little harsh on Gilligan – a rather ‘over-cute’ analysis. If a bowler looks like getting wickets, surely the skipper must reason that he is the best one to keep on.

Hobbs and Sutcliffe came out that Christmas Eve afternoon with England requiring the small matter of 605 runs to win. They did not let anyone down, making 110 before Hobbs was out for 57. Hearne went for a duck, made off 22 balls. Chapman, as was his wont, struck an entertaining 44 off 65 balls, and Hendren made nine, before Sutcliffe went for a deftly crafted 115.

Things looked hopeless but Woolley started treating the crowd to a wonderful display of stroke-making. Sandham made two, Tate recorded a duck and Gilligan made only one. Freeman, alongside Kent colleague Woolley, went four runs better than rival leg-spinner Mailey and made an unbeaten 50 at number ten. But Woolley, having made 123 off just 139 balls, was ninth man out. With England on 411, Hendry had Strudwick caught by Oldfield. It was then the highest fourth innings in history, beating England’s 370 at Adelaide in 1921.

England had lost by 193 runs, but not without a fight. It might have been different had those catches been taken off Tate. It was now 27th December, the first time a Test had run into a seventh day. Woolley’s was one of a record six centuries made. The Sydney public had been royally entertained and Tate must have been exhausted. The 712 balls he bowled in the match still represent the sixth most deliveries by anyone in Test history. Of those who have beaten the effort, only two were pace bowlers – South Africa’s Norman Gordon and Chud Langton. Gordon, at the time of writing, is still alive, aged 101, his stamina unquestioned.

After one Test, the England team, true to Gilligan’s word at Victoria Station, had made many friends on the tour so far. Yet there is a question over what sort of companions the Sussex and England captain was courting away from the cricketing action.

The 1920s were tumultuous in politics. Fear of communism following the Russian Revolution of 1917 was still high. In October 1924, four days before the UK’s general election and just after the MCC party arrived in Australia, the Daily Mail published a letter purporting to be written by Grigori Zinoviev, president of the communist organisation Comintern. It called on British sympathisers to support an Anglo-Soviet treaty and a loan to Moscow. It also urged followers to push for agitation among the armed forces.

The so-called “Zinoviev Letter” has since been proven to be a fake, its provenance murky. But its publication helped cause Ramsay MacDonald’s Labour government – the first in history – to lose the election by a landslide. It was against this ‘reds under the bed’ atmosphere that fascism was becoming a popular political creed among some of the upper and middle classes. One of the converts was Arthur Gilligan.

He and MCC tour manager Frederick Toone had joined the British Fascists, not to be confused with Oswald Mosley’s larger British Union of Fascists, in the belief that the existing system of parliamentary government might not be enough to repel the threat of communism and social degeneration. The Australian secret service was aware of Gilligan’s sympathies and, it emerged decades later, had been keeping tabs on him, in case he used some of the social occasions of the tour to garner support for fascism. The schedule was tight and Gilligan’s social and cricketing workload high, so did he really have time to try to convert the Australians, and indeed any of his team-mates?

On his return to England in 1925, Gilligan wrote an article, The Spirit of Fascism and Cricket Tours, stating that, when away from home, it was “essential to work solely on the lines of Fascism, ie the team must be good friends and out for one thing, and one thing only, namely the good of the side, and not for any self-glory”. It puts his emphasis on teamwork and committed fielding to back up the bowlers in a different light. Little evidence exists, however, to suggest Gilligan – who also regarded the British Empire as a possible bulwark against Bolshevism – persuaded many Australians.

The second Test, at Melbourne, began on New Year’s Day 1925. Collins, as usual, won the toss and again chose to bat first. As at Sydney, the bowlers had a rough time of it. The home side compiled 600 runs, the first time such a total had been reached in Tests. Ponsford and Victor Richardson both made centuries.

This time, Tate had an extra pace bowler for company in the shape of his old sparring partner – metaphorically rather than literally, given his pugilistic background – Johnny Douglas. The Times expressed the hope that Tate’s burden would be “lightened”, following his “excessive” work in the first Test. It added: “He can now be restricted to shorter spells of bowling – an important point when cricket is played in Australian conditions.” Still, he got through 45 eight-ball overs in taking three for 142.

When they began batting, on the third morning, England again made life hard for the Aussies. Hobbs and Sutcliffe put on 283, both men going to their second centuries of the series. Tate was the next highest scorer, with 34 off just 35 balls, as the visitors ended on 479 – 121 behind.

Then something exciting happened. Collins and Bardsley opened once more and the skipper did his best to tame the threat of Tate. The other batsmen were not so proficient. Tate had Bardsley lbw for two and then bowled Arthur Richardson for nine and the so-far prolific Ponsford for four. Australia’s mini-collapse left them 27 for three. He had taken all three for just five runs.

Yet nobody could continue the destruction whenever Tate had a rest. Collins crawled his way to 30 before Hearne dismissed him. Hearne then got Victor Richardson for eight. Tate got rid of Taylor for a well-made 90. He also had debutant, and one-Test wonder, Albert Hartkopf lbw for a duck and bowled Mailey for three.

Tate took six for 99 off 33.3 overs. It was his third haul of five wickets or more in his first four Ashes bowling innings. He was England’s one-man pace attack. Hearne’s leg-breaks and googlies did for the other four Australian batsmen.

Noble, yearning for a proper battle, rued the fact that even Tate was human and had physical limitations: “He appeared to get periodic spasms of greatness. He would bowl as one possessed for a time, meet with great success, and then dwindle away to mediocrity as though the impelling force had been burned up; and then, after a rest, the fire was rekindled and he came again with destruction in his wake, and there was more sorrow in the camp of his opponents. Some day he may develop a double supply of this dynamic quality; then all Australia will lament and yet admire.”

Late on day five, Hobbs and Sutcliffe went in, needing 372 to win. Surrey’s master batsman went to Mailey for 22, but his peerless Yorkshire apprentice made his third century of the series – and second of the match – ending on 127. Only Woolley’s 50 offered much support and England were all out for 290, to lose by 81 runs. Tate, last man in, was bowled by Gregory for a duck. A second Test in a row had gone to the seventh day. Never on the field of cricket had so much been given for so long for so little.

The series was progressing in a friendly way, as Gilligan had predicted, but the press tried to provoke a bit of needle by accusing Tate of bad sportsmanship. It was all based on a misunderstanding. After repeatedly hitting Oldfield’s pads, Tate walked down the pitch to talk to the Australian wicketkeeper. The newspapers claimed he had made abusive comments to his rival. Asked what he had said, Tate could not immediately remember. He thought a while then remembered: “Bloody hot, ain’t it, Bert? I could do with a cup of tea.” The matter rested there.

After two losses, it was hoped that the city of Adelaide, famed for its many churches and ‘English’ atmosphere, might bring respite for the visitors. The third Test began at the Oval ground on 16th January. Travelling from Melbourne, MCC stopped at Ballarat, where Tate’s toe became worse, so bad, in fact, that the nail came off. “All I could do was hope for the best at Adelaide,” he said, “but when Arthur Gilligan lost the toss again and I knew I should have to bowl at once, my heart sank, especially as it was a billiard-table wicket.”

Tate began well, bowling out Collins – who had thus far left balls outside the off stump so assiduously – for just three with one that broke back. Freeman bowled Jack Gregory for six and Tate had Taylor lbw for a duck. The score was 22 for three. England were on top, but then the bad luck Gilligan’s men had experienced in the previous two Tests became even more terrible.

The condition of Tate’s toe worsened and Johnny Douglas, who had been dropped after a poor showing at Melbourne, tried to bandage it for him during lunch. But after the break it was unbearable and he had to go off. An Adelaide shoemaker tried to fashion a special boot to help ease the strain, but to no avail. Shortly after Tate’s departure, Gilligan tore a back muscle and joined him in the pavilion. Then Freeman took a blow on the wrist while fielding and also came off.

It was left to Kilner, the only recognised frontline bowler still on the field, and Woolley, whose slow left-armers had been declining for several years, to carry the attack. Kilner bowled 56 overs, taking four for 127. Woolley sent down 43, capturing one wicket for 135. Australia recovered from their poor start to reach 489 all out. Jack Ryder in particular capitalised, making an undefeated 201. The Australian music halls made the most of England’s misfortune. The songs ‘Tate’s Poor Feet’ and ‘How’s Your Poor Old Toe?’ satirised the injury crisis.

With just 50 minutes of play left on the second day, Tate – seemingly undeterred by the threat of yorkers hitting his toe – opened the England innings with Nottinghamshire batsman William “Dodger” Whysall. Tate survived the day, but Whysall and Strudwick, another nightwatchman, did not. Chapman, at number four, stayed in, to leave England 36 for two.

The next morning Tate went for 27 and Chapman for 26. But Hobbs, coming in at five, made a third century in as many games and Hendren 92, taking the England total to 365.

When Australia replied, Tate could manage only ten overs for 17 runs before the pain became too much again. This time, though, it was not a problem, as Kilner and Woolley took four wickets each, and Freeman, recovered from his blow, got two. Australia were all out for 250, leaving England needing an improbable 375 to win. They so nearly made it, too. Sutcliffe hit 59. Whysall top-scored with 75. Chapman knocked up a lively 58, including seven fours and two sixes. The lower-middle order all chipped in, Tate, at eight, getting 21. Early on the seventh morning, with England on 357 – just 18 short of victory – Gilligan got out to Gregory.

It was now up to Freeman and last man Strudwick to finish the job. It was like Fred’s match in 1902: England’s last chance to stay in the Ashes. Sadly, just as before, it was not to be. Freeman was caught at the wicket off Mailey and Australia had won an enthralling match by 11 runs. The Ashes were theirs.

England had played gallantly but been desperately unlucky with the toss and injuries. Tate later reasoned that Collins, in his own way, had been just as “relentless” in his captaincy as Douglas Jardine during the famed ‘Bodyline’ series of 1932/33. Collins had not allowed Gilligan and Freeman to bat on at the end of day six, when they had a decent chance of reaching the target. Instead he made them go off and resume on day seven, after a fretful night. Gilligan was not a soft touch, but maybe he lacked Collins’s steeliness. The series gone, Collins sportingly conceded that there was “nothing between the two sides”. Gilligan told the Reuters news agency he did “not want to complain of our luck”, saying: “I am glad we made a decent fight.”

England now had almost a month until the fourth Test, again at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. The series was gone, but some pride could be salvaged. Tate played in three matches, two against Tasmania and one against Victoria, MCC winning all of them. In the second game against Tasmania he took a useful six for 26 against mediocre opposition.

During the Tasmania trip, Tate gave an interview to the Advocate newspaper. He described the weather as “wonderful”. Asked how he managed to get his “perfect” physique, he attributed it to walking. On to more personal stuff, he was asked: “Do you think marriage leads to a decline in a cricketer’s powers?” Tate, so long away from Kathleen and the twins, jovially responded: “That’s too much. I won’t have that. Why, before I was married I was a thin sort of a weed. To-day I do not think I am altogether a weed.”

On 13th February the fourth Test started. For once, miracle of miracles, Gilligan won the toss and England finally had first use of a pitch. They made the most of it. Of the batsmen only Chapman, with 12, failed, as Sutcliffe made 143, Hobbs 66 and Hearne 44. Woolley got 40, Hendren 65, Whysall 76 and Kilner 74. Tate, at number ten, got just eight, but it did not matter as England ended on an enormous 548 – a true team effort.

Australia, their intensity apparently reduced after winning the series, faltered in reply, getting out for 269. Tate had Collins caught by Kilner for 22 and bowled Ryder for nought. That must have been satisfying after Ryder’s relatively easy double ton against a depleted attack at Adelaide. Hearne and Kilner got three wickets each and Woolley one.

Gilligan enforced the follow-on. Australia’s second innings was no better. Collins went for one, then Tate bowled Bardsley for a sixth-ball duck. On the fifth day, in the cloudy conditions he loved, he bowled beautifully. Tate took five wickets in total. Kelleway was caught at shoulder height by Strudwick, standing up to the wicket. Strudwick also caught Andrews off Tate, before the big man bowled Ponsford. Tate finished the match by bowling Oldfield for eight, as the home side struggled to 250 all out. England had won by an innings and 29 runs – their first victory over the old enemy in more than 12 miserable years. Even the home crowd were delighted as they gave the tourists a rousing cheer.

With his toe mended Tate was on top of the world, in more ways than one. In those days there were no official rankings for players. However, the International Cricket Council has applied them retrospectively. After the fourth Test Tate reached the number one spot for bowlers, a position he was not to relinquish for more than five years – although, of course, he was never to know that.

One Test to go and he could return to his beloved Sussex. But, first, records for achievement, to go with those he had already collected for endurance, were looming large. Sydney Barnes, during the 1911/12 series, had taken 34 wickets. Tate was now on 29. There might even be a chance of beating Arthur Mailey’s record total of 36 wickets, set in the 1920/21 Ashes. Immortality beckoned.

The fifth timeless Test, played at Sydney, began on 27th February. Following the massive scores and seven-day matches which had made this series so long and grinding, it was to be a relatively normal contest. Collins, after the aberration at Melbourne, returned to his winning ways at the toss and opted, as ever, to bat. But Gilligan dismissed his opposite number for just one. Gregory was run out for 29 when Tate threw in a high return and the agile Strudwick took the ball and broke the wicket in a single motion. Kilner then bowled Ryder, Collins’s fellow opener, for 29, leaving Australia on 64 for three. Andrews also went to Kilner. Four down for 99 and still no wicket for Tate. Mailey’s record looked like it might be out of reach.

Normal service was resumed, however, as Tate had Taylor caught by Whysall for 15 – 103 for five. After that Ponsford and Alan Kippax put on a stand of 105, before Kilner bowled Kippax for 42 and had Ponsford caught by Woolley for 80. But then, despite some resistance, Tate cleared up the tail. He got Kelleway lbw for nine, had Oldfield caught by Strudwick for 29 and bowled out Mailey for 14. Australia were all out for 295. Tate’s wickets tally for the series stood at 33.

England made a bit of a dog’s dinner in reply, Woolley’s 47 the highest score in the total of 167. Tate, with 25 in 25 balls, was second-highest scorer. The damage was done by the debutant leg-spinner Clarrie Grimmett, a bowler who had waited years for his chance and was not about to squander it.

Australia were back in, with Tate needing three wickets to match Mailey and four to beat him. Collins juggled his order again. The first two wickets, those of Ryder and Gregory, went to Gilligan and Hearne. With the score on 110 Tate had Taylor stumped by Strudwick for 25. Perhaps it was worth the wicketkeeper standing up. This was the only stumping achieved off Tate in Test cricket. It was also the dismissal with which he matched Barnes’s Ashes series record for England.

Then Ponsford was run out, leaving the Australians on 130 for four. Hearne got Andrews for a well-made 80. Woolley got Kippax out for eight, the score reading 156 for six. Just four wickets left in the series. Would Tate do it? Collins and Kelleway put on a half-century partnership but soon afterwards Tate had the skipper lbw for 28. He was now on 35 wickets. He had beaten the great Barnes.

The waiting continued as Kelleway and Oldfield added another 116 to the score. Then, with the Australians on 325, Kelleway was caught by Whysall. Tate had 36 wickets. He had matched Mailey. All the pain and effort had been worth it.

With no addition to the score, Tate performed a most poetic act. He bowled Mailey himself for a duck to break the leg-spinner’s record. Tate had taken 37 Test wickets. The crowd roared in approval of a big-hearted man who had carried the England attack for months.

Again, with no addition to the team total, he then did exactly the same to Mailey’s leg-spinning partner Grimmett, bowling him for nothing. Australia were all out for 325 and Tate had taken five for 115 off 39.3 overs. He had nine in the match and, most importantly, 38 wickets for the series. His work was now done. No more toiling away on heartless wickets against top-class batsmen, for now. He could rest.

In his record year, Barnes had been partnered by the almost equally brilliant Frank Foster, who had claimed 32 victims. Tate, with Gilligan a faded power, had done it alone. Noble wrote that “only the worst of luck” had stopped him getting past Mailey’s record earlier and that “there was not one of that vast multitude who did not realise the greatness of his effort”.

England’s batsmen, already possibly demob happy, again put up little fight against Grimmett, who took six for 37. Tate was the top scorer, with 33 off just 38 balls. The innings included four fours and a six. He was entertaining the Australian crowds until the last. England were thrashed by 307 runs and the reign of Gilligan, never to play another Test, was over.

Collins presented Tate with an inscribed ball from the New South Wales Cricket Association to mark his achievement. He was touched, remembering: “Whatever others may say, I have always appreciated the sportsmanship of the Australians.”

Tate played one more match on the tour, against South Australia in Adelaide, taking four more wickets. An exhausted MCC were thrashed by ten wickets. It was time for the long voyage home.

Noble ranked Tate just a little lower than Barnes, but thought he might reach the same standard with more “versatility”. In other words, he wanted him to apply ‘spin’, or cut, to some deliveries.

He wrote: “In the natural course of evolution methods change, and the desire to achieve is largely influenced by the tendency to follow the line of least resistance. It is far easier to produce a result which seems sufficient for the time being by learning to seam-swerve than it is to develop the same amount of accuracy and at the same time bowl the ball with an off-spin. The result in the latter case is infinitely more dangerous and, therefore, of greater value than the former, but the road is longer for the bowler, and many weary hours of practice are necessary to complete his education... The loss of this type of bowling is the outstanding weakness of cricket today.”

Any criticism of his efforts was like quibbling with Shakespeare for a lack of stage directions or Wagner for making his operas too loud. Tate had been incredible. His view was that his style of bowling was a development on George Hirst’s innovations. Noble’s was that, despite its brilliance, it was a regression from that of Barnes. It was an understandable, yet misplaced, censure. In the Peter Shaffer play Amadeus, some of the work of composer Wolfgang Mozart is torn up by a disapproving director. His response would have been appropriate for Tate: “They say I have to rewrite the opera. But it’s perfect as it is! I can’t rewrite what’s perfect!”

MCC sailed from Adelaide to Perth before embarking for home on the ship Maloya. On the stop-off in Colombo, Tate ate curried prawns and got a dose of food poisoning, but he still put on weight during the voyage, which he deemed “greatly to my benefit for the next few years”.

The team arrived back at Victoria Station on 19th April – seven months after they had left. Considering they had lost 4-1, the reception was remarkable. At least they had finally triumphed in one Test. Hundreds of well-wishers gathered to cheer Gilligan’s men. As Sussex’s superstar came into view there were shouts of “good old Tate”. Some people suffered minor injuries as they jostled with one another to get a glimpse or a handshake.

Gilligan told the press the winter in Australia had been “just perfect”. One sceptical onlooker called out: “What about the Ashes?” Taken aback, the England captain replied: “Don’t mention them or I might become rude, but I think we will lift them in 1926.”

Tate had an almighty struggle to change platforms to catch the train to Brighton, where his family were waiting, but he did so as a national hero. There were further scenes of excitement when he pulled in to his home town. It was announced that a dinner was to be held at the Royal Pavilion, that architectural orgy of Regency excess, to celebrate the feats of Tate and Gilligan.

He would have been entitled to get some relaxation, but the English season was about to start and the life of a professional cricketer – particularly this professional cricketer – did not allow it.