Tour of England 1948              Captain: Don Bradman

21st Australian Test tour

19th Test-playing tour of England by Australia

(April - September 1948)

Australia had beaten England in 1946-47 and India in 1947-48, both by large margins.

Regarded before the tour as a side as good as had ever been sent to England, the Australians went undefeated and earned the name 'the Invincibles'. They won 23 of their 31 first-class fixtures, no fewer than 15 of them by the margin of an innings, which is easily the strongest record by any touring team in modern times.  In the Test matches the leeway of victory was just as comfortable: by 8 wickets, 409 runs, 7 wickets and an innings. Thus the five-Test series ended with Australia beating England 4-0 to retain The Ashes.

The fast bowling trio of Lindwall, Miller and Johnston thrived under that summer's ill-conceived playing conditions which allowed a new ball to be taken after only 55 overs. The Australian batting line-up was very strong, too, but English cricket was at a low ebb. The English selectors, picking from a pool of largely past-it or inexperienced players, called upon 21 different players during the series, including six new caps, in a forlorn effort to find a combination that might match this formidable Australian side.

The tour was immensely popular with the paying public (which brought in a huge profit of £75 000). It was their last chance to see Bradman batting but he went out with an inappropriately downbeat farewell at The Oval where he was bowled for a duck in his last Test innings.

All Australian tours

Previous Tour

New Zealand 1946

Next Tour

South Africa 1949-50

Next tour of England

1953

Members of the Test tour party  (17)

Openers:  Sidney Barnes, Bill Brown, Arthur Morris

Batsmen:   Don Bradman, Ron Hamence, Lindsay Hassett, Neil Harvey, Sam Loxton, Keith Miller.

Wicket-keepers  Don Tallon, Ron Saggers

Slow bowlers: Doug Ring, Ian Johnson, Colin McCool

Medium-paced :Ernie Toshack

Fast bowlers: Ray Lindwall, Bill Johnston.

Comments from Wisden’s

State representation

  Sheffield Shield teams

N   New South Wales(6)

Q  Queensland (3)

S South Australia (2)

V Victoria (6)

W Western Australia (0)

Average age of  team at time of first Test match

    (10 June 1948) : 

        30 yrs  4 months

Key to type:

RHB Right-handed bat

RM  Right arm medium-paced bowler

RFM  Right-arm fast medium

OB   Off break

WK  Wicket-keeper

Test Appearances made before the tour

Bradman 47,  Brown 20,  Hassett 14,  Miller 11,  Tallon 11,  Lindwall 10,  Barnes 9,  Johnson 9,  McCool 9,  Morris 9,  Toshack,  Johnston,  Hamence 3,  Harvey 2,  Loxton 1,  Ring 1,  Saggers 0.

Tour Officials

Keith Johnson was named as manager on 31 December 1947. He was also manager of the Australian Services team in 1945.  The only other candidate was Alfred Randell, once Bill Jeanes, secretary of the Australian Board of Control and manager of the 1938 Australian tour in England, had made himself unavailable at a late stage.

Walter Robins, a personal friend of Donald Bradman, was asked to make all the hotel and travel arrangements.

Selectors

Donald Bradman (South Australia),  EA 'Chappie' Dwyer (NSW),   Jack Ryder (Victoria)

  The Board appointed them as selectors for the tour party on 13 September 1947.

Selection

Announced on 30 December 1947 that 17 players would make the trip. With a Test series against India there was no need for a trial match.  The selectors made their choices on 11 February 1948, and the Board appointed Bradman as captain two days later. Hassett was made vice-captain on 15 February.

Unavailable:  Bill Alley (NSW) playing league cricket for Colne;  Bill Jeanes (as manager). There was doubt for a while about the availability of Don Bradman.

Tour Party Announced :  11 February 1948.

Ernie Toshack's selection was made subject to passing a fitness test on his badly strained leg, Len Johnson of Queensland being asked to stand by.  Toshack passed his fitness test on 27 February.

Not selected :  Jack Pettiford,  Jack Moroney,  George Tribe.

Time between selection and assembly for matches in Australia    

   22 days

(11 February - 4 March)

Travel 

The touring party assembled at Melbourne on 4 March 1948 and flew to Hobart for matches in Tasmania. The side then flew to Perth to play a match against Western Australia.  Tallon, who had been instructed to have his tonsils removed before the tour, was not ready for the pre-tour matches and joined the team by flying direct to Perth.

The 'Strathaird' sailed from Fremantle on Friday 19 March. After stopping in Colombo for a match against Ceylon on 27 March, the ship also called at Bombay on 30 March.

The 'Strathaird' berthed at Tilbury Docks on Friday 16 April. Bradman presented 17,000 food parcels as a gift from the state of Victoria to the British people, who were then living under strict rationing.

Time spent in England

    160 days

(16 April  - 23 September)

On-tour selection panel

Don Bradman (captain),   Lindsay Hassett (vice-captain),   Arthur Morris.

Reinforcements

None.  Toshack's injured cartilage caused him trouble but no replacement player was needed. Toshack had an operation on his left knee before leaving England and had almost completely recovered by the time the team arrived home.

Fixtures/Results

† not first-class

Time spent in England before First Test: 

  11 days

(16 April - 10 June)

Test appearances on tour

5 -  Bradman, Hassett, Johnston, Lindwall, Miller, Morris.

4 -  Barnes, Johnson, Tallon, Toshack.

3 -  Loxton.

2 -  Brown, Harvey.

1 -  Ring, Saggers.

0 -  Hamence, McCool.

Highlights

•  Neil Harvey made his Test debut at Headingley and scored a centruy (112)

•  Don Bradman scored his 29th and last hundred (173) in the same match taking Australia to victory after being set 404 runs to win on a pitch which should have helped the spin bowlers. This was the highest fourth innings score to win a Test match until 1975-76 (India against West indies)

•  At The Oval Lindwall (6 for 20) dismissed England for 52 runs, their second lowest total in Tests

•  Bradman was bowled for nought by Hollies, leaving him 4 runs short of 7000 Test runs and an average of 100.

Tour Summary

Return to Australia

The team sailed out of Tilbury on the 'Orontes' on 23 September, and arrived back in Fremantle on 19 October, in Melbourne on  25 October, and Sydney on 29 October.

Time away from Australia

  220 days  

(19 March to  25 October)

Finances

The tour profit was £75 000. The Australian players each received a payment of £800, as opposed to £650 in 1938.

Written accounts of the tour

"Gone To the Test Match"   (1949)  John Arlott  [pub Longmans Green]

“Two Summers at the Tests”  (1952)  by John Arlott  [Sportsmans Book Club] - includes '’Gone to the Test Match’ and ‘Gone to the Cricket', his 1947 account of the series against South Africa [published in a new edition by Pavilion Books, 1986)

"Brightly Fades the Don"  (1949) by  Jack Fingleton  [Collins].

"Cricket Conquest"   (1949)  by W.J.O'Reilly  [Werner Laurie]

"Test Cricket 1948: The Australians in England"   ABC broadcast cricket book.

"Bradman’s Invincibles"  (2009)  by  Roland Perry  [Aurum Press Ltd]

Postscript

Australia did not accept the West Indian Board's invitation to tour in the spring of 1949.  Firstly, difficulties with obtaining return passages from England in 1948 compelled shifting domestic first-class matches to the end of the 1948-49 Australian season, so that the cricketers who toured England could participate.

Secondly, it was known that the leading players would be absent for the whole 1949-50 season in South Africa, meaning the top players would not not have been seen playing in Australia for two years.