“Until Sutcliffe played it, such an innings did not exist outside schoolboy dreams.”
Australian cricket writer Ray Robinson
It was Boxing Day, 1953. The telegram arrived in the early hours of the morning, as the New Zealand players slept in their Johannesburg hotel rooms ahead of the second day of the second Test against South Africa. It was carried by anxious hotel staff to the room of the New Zealand manager Jack Kerr, who had to be woken to receive the message. There were ill tidings. The Wellington–Auckland overnight express train had plunged into the flooded Whangaehu River near Tangiwai on Christmas Eve; of that, they were already aware. Now came news that among the dead was Nerissa Love, the fiancée of New Zealand cricketer Bob Blair. The young 21-year-old fast-bowler was fast asleep just along the corridor, rooming with twelfth-man Eric Dempster.
Hours later, the stunned tourists were assembling at Ellis Park for the resumption of play without their stricken team-mate. Blair was left grieving back at the hotel with Kerr and was not expected to play a further role in the Test. It was another hot morning on the high veldt; not a breath of wind to stir the flags of the Dominion and the Union, which drooped together at half-mast. New Zealand managed to finish off the home side’s first innings quickly, the last two wickets falling at 271, at which stage a hint of optimism could be detected in the camp. It would last barely 15 minutes. On an under-prepared surface, which was green and volatile, South African paceman Neil Adcock was about to prove himself not only hazardous, but close to lethal.
Sutcliffe recalled that it wasn’t so much Adcock’s bouncer causing all the trouble, as the fact his good-length deliveries were ‘going vertical’, exploding off a length and steepling into fingers, elbows, chests and, unfortunately, heads. No helmets or even thigh pads in those days, of course. Openers Geoff Rabone and Murray Chapple were both hit in the first over and were soon dismissed with the total at nine. Sutcliffe arrived at the crease and four balls later was pole-axed by a ball from Adcock that flew from a length. Eyewitnesses still talk about an awful ‘crack’ that could be heard around the ground. The New Zealand left-hander fell to the grass unconscious and, although recovering enough to walk off aided by stretcher bearers and the captain Geoff Rabone, collapsed again at the hospital while undergoing treatment.
‘He lay there without moving,’ wrote Ray Woodley of South Africa’s Sunday Times. ‘Up rushed the Springboks. Somehow Sutcliffe managed to get to his feet with the assistance of the first-aid men. As he walked out — he refused a stretcher — he turned to shake hands with the Springbok captain, Jack Cheetham. This was a truly sporting gesture from Sutcliffe, especially as some in the crowd had started to shout for Adcock to be taken off. Had this happened it would have been most unfair as the South African express bowler had been keeping a good length. The deliveries which reared up alarmingly were not bumpers.’
As tough as it was at the X-ray room for Sutcliffe, there would be no pause to the bloody carnage at Ellis Park. John Reid was in for less than half an hour but was tattooed all over his body. Lawrie Miller was struck flush over the heart and followed Sutcliffe to hospital, spitting blood. Matt Poore played on after being hit painfully by a rearing delivery, and poor Johnny Beck, on debut with his team in disarray, took one in the groin so badly his protective box was inverted. Not even the sight of Jackie McGlew using his bat handle to hammer it back into shape could lighten the mood. As often happens in cricket, it was Adcock who initially put the cat amongst the kiwis, but it would be his swing-bowling colleague at the other end, David Ironside, who would prosper the most.
Neither Miller or Sutcliffe were expected to resume their innings, Rabone announcing at the luncheon adjournment that the pair would not bat again. Despite his discomfort, Beck would hang on for 10 overs after the resumption before being caught at the wicket off Anton Murray’s medium-pace. The scoreboard would read 59 for five at the time yet with two men down, it was effectively 59 for seven. But then Miller, back from hospital and defiant, returned to add 24 with Frank Mooney before being bowled by Ironside. It was at 81 for six, still 41 runs short of the follow-on mark, when a blanched Sutcliffe, his head a cartoon of bandages, would stride back into the middle. What followed was an innings of such courage, such audacity, most of those in attendance still prefer to recall it in hushed, almost reverent tones.
Sutcliffe’s plan was as simple as Adcock’s: attack at all cost. He hit the second ball he received, from Ironside, over square-leg for six and soon after added a three and a four off the same bowler. Cheetham recalled Adcock to the crease, at which point Sutcliffe unfurled one of his trademark square-cuts to the boundary. He then took the long handle to off-spinner Hugh Tayfield, twice lofting him over the ropes. The crowd, which roared with delight when Sutcliffe returned to bat, was now in raptures. Rabone and a couple of first-aid men raced into the middle to readjust the Kiwi’s bandages, which had been weeping blood during the exchanges. They eventually decided to tape a white towel around his head. But the onslaught continued. Fifty runs were polished off in 39 minutes, wicket-keeper Frank Mooney lending unwavering support.
Soon though, Ironside went through Mooney’s defences, Tony MacGibbon followed quickly and, though the follow-on mark had been averted, it appeared New Zealand’s innings had ended when Guy Overton became the ninth wicket to fall, with Blair believed to be still back at the hotel. It was as the players started leaving the field, and the crowd began stretching their legs and chatting amongst themselves, that a figure appeared out of the tunnel. In Between Overs, Sutcliffe calls on an account from the late cricket writer Dick Brittenden:
‘Sympathy for Blair in his sorrow and admiration for his courage in carrying on were natural but somehow the whole vast crowd, normally more matter-of-fact than most, became one at this poignant moment, a moment the New Zealanders and others will recall with vivid clarity all their lives. He walked out into the sunshine, finding it pathetically difficult to put on his gloves, and the huge crowd stood for him, silent, as he went. Looking down on the scene from the windows of the pavilion, the New Zealanders wept openly and without shame; the South Africans were in little better state and Sutcliffe, walking over to meet his partner, was just as obviously distressed.
‘Before he faced his first ball, Blair passed his glove across his eyes in the heart-wringing gesture of any small boy, anywhere; in trouble but defiant. His was a courage unexcelled in a match which made heavy demands on the New Zealanders. To take physical knocks and come back for more is admirable, but to carry on after one’s world has fallen about one’s ears requires an effort quite out of the ordinary.
‘Then came the most thrilling batting of the series. Sutcliffe swung Tayfield high and dry for six; two balls later another effortless on-drive went for six and two balls later again he hit another one into a half-demented crowd. Then he took a single, whereupon Blair finished off the over with a tremendous hit far into the seething, cheering spectators at mid-wicket; 25 from the Tayfield over. A few more were added before Blair was stumped, at which point the crowd might have been thought, from the warmth of their applause, to have been cheering a last-minute win for the Springboks rugby team.
‘The batsmen came back in, although there was time for one last, unforgettable gesture. Sutcliffe had hit seven sixes, six off Tayfield, and he’d made 80 not out in 90 minutes. With Blair he’d scored 33 for the last wicket in ten minutes, he’d saved the follow-on and was quite entitled to regard the tumult of cheering as a tribute to his own skill and daring. But he stood aside at the gate, allowing Blair to pass through first. Through they went, arms about each other, into the darkness of the tunnel, but behind them they left a light and an inspiration which several thousand lectures on how to play a forward defensive stroke will never kindle.’
Blair confirmed later he’d been listening to a radio commentary of the match at the hotel and became determined to get down to Ellis Park before the innings was closed. He was in a terrible state, having been unaware that his fiancée was making the train journey in the first place, before finding out that she’d only proceeded at the last minute after being offered a free ticket. She and a neighbour had sat together on the train. Both had perished. Blair had met Nerissa at the regular Saturday night dances at the Lower Hutt Horticultural Hall. The pair used to frequent the old Elbe Milk Bar and were regulars at the local movie theatres in their area: The State, The Palace and The Grand.
When asked by Kerr on that Boxing Day morning what he wanted to do, Blair said he didn’t even have to think about it. He wanted to go home. As soon as possible. It was only when it was explained to him that he could never get back in time for the funeral that he realised the hopelessness of his position. It took 28 days to get from Wellington to Cape Town on the Arawa. There were no international flights in those days, nor international phone calls. To make things worse for Blair, letters Nerissa had written to him in the month before her death continued to arrive at the team’s hotel for another four or five weeks after her funeral.
‘When things got really grim, Jack and I went to the ground in a taxi,’ recalled Blair. ‘He relented, I think, because of the state of the team. Two guys were in hospital and another was getting battered and I was insisting on going down there to do something. In the end he eventually agreed. I’d already bowled in that game and I wanted to do my bit. Nobody in the team knew I was coming. Most of the other guys were watching from upstairs in the “glasshouse”, directly above the changing room, and there was, I think, Guy Overton sitting in the tunnel. When the innings was over, Sutty and I weren’t allowed to go out and field so we pulled up a couple of old metal chairs under the showers and drank whisky. From then on, Sutty and I became great mates. He was one of the all-time good guys.’
Dempster, a left-arm spinner from Wellington, found himself heavily involved. As the twelfth-man he was put in charge of ferrying Sutcliffe to and from hospital, and as Blair’s room-mate, he was the first that morning, outside the team management and captain, to learn of the results of the horrific train accident back in New Zealand. A provincial team-mate of Blair’s, he not only was good mates with the paceman but also Nerissa, whom he’d always known by her nickname, Chris.
‘I received a call from Geoff Rabone about 4 am,’ Dempster said. ‘They woke me up and told me to come outside into the hallway. I was advised they’d just heard from Wellington that Chris had died at Tangiwai. Jack walked into our room, where Bob was waking, and told him the wretched news. She was a great gal, Chris. Bob had a few rough edges at that stage but she’d got him on the right track. She’d take his pay packet from him each week and bank it; that sort of thing. She just had something about her. She was wise beyond her years; just the thing for Bob.
‘I’ll tell you what, it was the most terrible moment of my life. No-one could look at anyone else because we were all on the verge of bursting into tears.
‘It’s so sad when I think back. Earlier in the tour at Benoni, Bob and I went to a florist’s shop so he could send her a huge bouquet of flowers; I think it cost him £5 which was a colossal amount of money in those days. It was just awful when the news arrived. I think it had a huge effect on Bob’s career; I’m not sure whether he really kicked on after that. It took him a helluva long time to get over it.’
Of the South African fast-bowling at the time, Dempster said it was truly ferocious. Adcock had a natural ability to extract extreme bounce from any pitch, let alone an Ellis Park surface which had usually been employed as a rugby ground, but was converted for cricket while the Wanderers Stadium was being developed. It would be the ground’s last season of Test cricket. The pitch was hard and fiery, Dempster said, and to make matters worse, the South Africans at that stage were using locally-manufactured balls, so hard and unforgiving that they’d break bats, bones and leave fieldsmen’s hands bruised. Ironside was more in the medium-fast league, but Adcock and Free State’s Peter Heine were official members of the genuine express club.
Blair’s decision to escape the team hotel and rush to the ground before the New Zealand side was dismissed was seen as a typical reaction by Dempster, who regarded the Wellington fast-bowler as a tremendously gutsy guy. He also viewed Kerr as one of the more humourless men to be appointed manager of a touring sports team, and therefore not much company in the circumstances. But one of his most vivid memories remains the trip to the Johannesburg hospital after the Adcock moment, and the state of Sutcliffe when they arrived at the accident and emergency department.
‘When we arrived Bert had a lump the size of my fist behind his left ear. Normally a left-hander would cop it on the other side but Bert had attempted to hook, had turned his head into the ball just before impact and it cannoned into the left side. He just took it there and dropped. Next thing, at A & E, this young doctor walks up, spots the huge lump and gives it an inquisitive poke — you can imagine how that would feel, and Bert just flakes out on to the floor with the pain. I still can’t believe that happened. But they took X-rays and couldn’t find any fracture so dressed his torn ear-lobe and sent us back to the ground.
‘We were met there by Jack Kerr and Geoff Rabone. “How are we going,” asked Bert. “Not very well,” came the reply. “Right ho then, I’ll bat again,” Bert said — “just bring me a double whisky”. So someone rustled up a dram; Bert swallowed it, padded up and went out and batted like a bloody champion. You know, I think after that, when he had a bit of time to reflect on what happened, he realised just how lucky he was not to be killed. People talk about him becoming gun-shy but no-one could forget an accident like that. I remember being hit in the neck by Bob Blair in Wellington. It’s hard not to look out for it afterwards.’
Beck was only 19 years old and hadn’t played a first-class game when he was selected for the tour to South Africa. When he assembled with the balance of the squad to board the Arawa for the trip to Cape Town, he’d never met any of his team-mates. The young Wellington left-hander had been prominent for his school and club side but was only called into the second Test eleven after Dempster was forced out of contention with influenza. Beck’s highest first-class score had been 53, scored almost a month earlier against Rhodesia. Since then, no New Zealand specialist batsman has made his Test debut with a lower first-class ‘personal best’.
‘What an introduction to my first test,’ he said of the Ellis Park episode. ‘Balls from Adcock shaving and hitting heads, rearing from a good length, our batsmen being helped from the field bleeding and battered. Still, I played with Frank Mooney for an hour and saw off Adcock. He really never hurt me although he turned my box inside out. I felt I’d proved I could handle speed and hostility. Besides Bert, all our recognised batsmen were repeatedly hit at Ellis Park. Rabone, Chapple and Reid took a hammering. Miller was coughing blood and Frank Mooney copped a number of blows in the back. I had my share of bruises but all below the belt.
‘That pitch in the second test was murderous. Our bowlers, notably Blair and MacGibbon did their best but were not as quick as Adcock and therefore not as lethal. We did tame him on a good wicket later on, though. It was a curious thing; they were a good crew, the South Africans, very friendly and hospitable. They were full-on in the field but good blokes off it. Dave Ironside was a lovely chap who could move the ball both ways with ease. He was spot-on ball after ball. John Waite, another fine chap. He was a very good batsman and opened in the first and third Tests. His keeping was more than adequate, but he didn’t stand out as a gloveman because he was quite undemonstrative. I was quite friendly with Tayfield and his family and also with Adcock which was just as well. He, Adcock, never seemed to try and knock my head off, something that wasn’t apparent to many of my team-mates.’
Team-mate Tony MacGibbon, whose decision to reduce his run-up on the South African tour seemed to increase his effectiveness with the ball, and in turn gave him the confidence to develop into one of the side’s more useful all-rounders, remembers that it wasn’t simply the pace of Adcock that was proving difficult for the New Zealanders. It was just as much the manner in which he hit the seam and extracted movement off the pitch.
‘He could get them to jag back and that made him a real handful,’ said MacGibbon. ‘He’d have them nipping back and tucking you up and then he’d have one that would go straight through. That’s why Geoff Rabone would get hit on the body so often. He was always very intent on getting behind the line, and when it nipped back he’d be marooned. Of course, they’d have a short backward square for the popped catch or the inside edge onto pad. It was quality bowling and, if it wasn’t for the fact we were on the wrong end of it during that series, it might have been a bit easier to admire. But as it happened, it was pretty hard work.’
Adcock was clearly the quickest bowler of the 1953–54 series but New Zealand were far from toothless. As Sutcliffe and Blair sat in the showers late on the second day of that second Test, their team-mates courageously carried the battle forward in the field, knocking over three South African batsmen in the hour before stumps. Reid and MacGibbon, in particular, gave the tourists hope the following day, ending with four wickets apiece as South Africa slumped to 67 for six before struggling to 148. A lead of just 232. Any hopes of a remarkable maiden Test win, however, were quickly dashed on the penultimate evening. New Zealand lost three quick wickets, including Sutcliffe for ten. They were rolled for 100 on the final day.
‘It [the collapse] might have been due to the hugely emotional events earlier in the Test, but there was no doubt the light was a critical factor as well,’ recalled MacGibbon. ‘I remember sitting there in that Ellis Park Stadium and noticing the lights from the dressing room glowing brightly. Geoff Rabone was hit all over the body on that second last day and, although play was eventually abandoned because of bad light, it was only when the light was absolutely awful. It was a tough couple of hours or so of batting before the call was made.’
For many followers of the time, the brave first innings resistance from Sutcliffe and the dramatic appearance of Blair on the second afternoon, overshadowed New Zealand’s eventual 132 run loss and made the result seem almost inconsequential. South African newspapers praised the daring of the valiant Kiwis and their refusal to bow to such circumstances, and in particular the thrilling counterattack from Sutcliffe. Only one other player had struck more than seven sixes in an innings; ironically it had been Wally Hammond, during his triple-century at Eden Park that Sutcliffe had attended as a 10-year-old. Even now, more than half a century later, it is difficult to attend a New Zealand–South Africa sporting fixture of any description in Johannesburg without someone, be it an after-dinner speaker or a newspaper journalist, rekindling the drama of Ellis Park.
‘It is not the result of the match that will be best remembered when men come together to talk about cricket,’ sang the Rand Daily Mail the day after the Test ended, in an article later reproduced in Men in White. ‘They will speak of a match that was as much worth watching as it was worth playing, a match the New Zealanders decided must go on. And if the rest of the world still wonders what it is all about, the only possible answer is that, if men are going to play, they can do a lot worse than play cricket.’
