Tim Rice: Eternal fascination of outrageous numbers game (27 August 1997)

Wednesday 27 August 1997

Eternal fascination of outrageous numbers game

Tim Rice Talking Cricket

SRI LANKA`S recent staggering achievement in scoring 952 for six against India has brought joy to the hearts of all those who enjoy mind-boggling records. It is politically incorrect to say so, but not every cricket lover wants to see a closely fought match every time. Now and then a splurge of statistical outrageousness is just as enjoyable as a well-balanced contest between bat and ball.

As a contest, the India-Sri Lanka Test might have been a turkey, but it is not only anoraks who will look back at the match with unusual fondness, as a golden eagle of a game. The huge number of people who turned out for that final day in Colombo (until then, the game had been poorly attended) in the hope of seeing a couple of pages of Wisden rewritten proves the point.

Whoever the chap was who said that the ideal cricket match was four innings of around 200 each, with the result in suspense until the final over, was not very wide of the mark, but even he would have got bored if every game turned out that way.

Famous cricket numbers such as 501, 364 and 1,107, not to mention incredible combinations of digits such as 19 for 90 and 10 for 10 are crucial to cricket`s fascination, no matter if the matches they graced resulted in the most one-sided of victories or draws utterly predictable from ball one.

One thousand, one hundred and seven? Well, that remains the highest team score - by Victoria against New South Wales in 1926-27. The only other time the magic 1,000 was passed was also by Victoria, four years earlier, against the then less intimidating opposition of Tasmania. On that occasion, Victoria could manage only 1,059. Sri Lanka`s recent exploit is now No 3 on the all-time list and of course by some distance the No 1 as far as Test innings are concerned. Terrific.

The story of Victoria`s 1,107 will never be better told than it was by Jack Fingleton in his masterpiece Masters Of Cricket. The words of the distinguished Australian opening batsman, a truly great writer on the game, make this extraordinary match almost as fresh and as entertaining as it must have been to the Christmas holiday crowds of 1926.

Australian cricket had been in turmoil after their defeat in England the previous English summer and heads had been rolling. (Would that this sentence could be written in December 1997). Alan Kippax was the newly appointed skipper of New South Wales and his team were young and inexperienced, though containing great names such as Arthur Mailey and Archie Jackson, then only 17. They had, however, beaten South Australia and came to Melbourne with some confidence.

This was soon shattered somewhat as they were dismissed in five hours on Christmas Eve (a Friday) for an uninspired 221. Then came a two-day break - Christmas Day and Sunday. On Monday, the two celebrated Bills, Woodfull and Ponsford, began Victoria`s reply. Woodfull should have been run out (off a no-ball) when the score was just 17. Instead of making this early breakthrough, the New South Wales side had to wait until the score was 375 before they took the first wicket, that of Woodfull, for 133. The visitors` position looked fairly grim then, but by the close of play it must have seemed quite rosy in retrospect - Ponsford was 334 not out, `Stork` Hendry was 86 not out and Victoria were emerging as favourites for the match at 573 for one.

Next day, the crowd had only one thought in mind - how long would it take Ponsford, who had scored a quadruple century when Victoria made their thousand against Tasmania in 1922-23, (a) to beat Clem Hill`s Sheffield Shield record of 365 set in 1900-01, and (b) to make a second 400-plus, or even a 500 score? Ponsford did neither. He snicked a ball on to one of his feet and it rebounded on to the stumps.

Fingleton continues: "He turned, surveyed the fallen bail, and said with great feeling, `By cripes, I am unlucky!` That remark staggered the New South Welshmen almost as much as did the score." The total was then 594 for two. Ponsford was doubtless mollified when he made 437 against Queensland the following season.

Hendry gave his wicket away after a mere 100 and two other men fell cheaply, but Jack Ryder had no intention of missing out. He pulverised what was left of the attack for a murderous 295, missing his triple century when trying to reach it in the grand manner via what would have been his seventh hit clean out of the ground, caught in the deep by Kippax. With help from Hartkopf, Liddicut and Ellis (who had the honour of striking the ball that brought up the thousand) the total, put together in just two days, passed anything seen before, or since, in first-class cricket.

This was the match that inspired another superb writercricketer, Mailey, who finished with four for 364, to point out that his figures would have been much better if a chap in the outer stand had not twice dropped Ryder.

On the fourth and final day, a weary New South Wales did well to make 210, losing by an innings and 656. Hardly a close encounter, but what a feast. Cricket needs the odd occasion when scores run off the end of the meter and few occasions came odder than this. Except possibly the return match, just two weeks later, when New South Wales made 435 and bowled out Victoria for 35. Terrific.

Source :: The Electronic Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/)