The Lord’s crowd laughed when Aussie cricket captain Michael Clarke said that his team could come back from 0-2 to win the current Ashes series 3-2, as the history weighs heavily against the Aussie side currently in England.
In the history of five Test series stretching back to 1884/85, only one team – Bradman’s 1936/37 Aussies – has been able to win the series 3-2 after being down 0-2.
On another five occasions a team has managed to come back to level at 2-2 before going down 2-3.
Clarke has one heck of a job ahead of him and frankly I can’t see myself revisiting this article at the end of the fifth Test. Clarke, despite being a very good batsman, is certainly no Don Bradman.
And he doesn’t have a Bill O’Reilly, or Stan McCabe, or Bill Brown, or Jack Fingleton, or Bert Oldfield, or Ernie McCormick, or Chuck Fleetwood-Smith, to assist him.
Back in 1936/37, in his first series as Test captain, Bradman had to rely on himself to pull Australia out of the bag. He had been somewhat unlucky with Australia caught out on ‘sticky’ wickets when batting in each of the first two Tests.
Bradman had scored just 120 runs in four digs in the first two Tests, including two ducks. But he turned Australia’s fortunes around with two double centuries and a single century in the next three Tests.
Bradman’s sequence of scores were as follows: 38 and 0; 0 and 82; 13 and 270; 26 and 212; 169. His opposing captain Wally Hammond must have wondered what he had to do to beat Australia.
Hammond himself led fabulously from the front with a fine all-round performance of 468 runs at 58.50 and 12 wickets at 25.08. Hammond had a top score of 231 not out and also captured 5/57 in an innings.
Tiger O’Reilly helped Bradman by capturing 25 wickets at 22.20 while English paceman Bill Voce did all he could for his team’s cause with 26 wickets at 21.53.
Interestingly, the first-ever five Test series in 1884/85 followed the almost precise sequence of win, win, loss, loss, win for England against Australia.
Arthur Shrewsbury led the same English XI in every Test. Australia on the other hand, went through more than 25 players, with not a single player appearing in every Test.
Shrewsbury himself averaged 50 while Bobby Peel took 21 wickets. Billy Barnes had a great all-round tour, averaging 52 with the bat and taking 19 wickets.
Percy McDonnell (57.50 with the bat) and Demon Spofforth (19 wickets at 16) were the best for Australia.
In 1894/95 England triumphed again by 3-2 following the same sequence but Australia’s two wins were the biggest of the series, including one by an innings.
England’s stars were swing bowler Tom Richardson with 32 wickets and Peel again with 27 wickets. All-rounder George Giffen had a huge series for Australia, top scoring with 475 runs at an average of 52.77 with the bat and capturing 34 wickets, the most in the series, at 24.11.
In 1955 England won the first two Tests before South Africa struck back to level. England then secured the series in the fifth Test.
Only three batsman averaged more than 30 in the series – Peter May (72.75) and Denis Compton (54.67) for England and Derrick McGlew (52.89) for South Africa.
No English bowler captured 20 wickets although four of them took between 17 and 13. For South Africa, off-spinner Hugh Tayfield took 26 wickets, seaming all-rounder Trevor Goddard 25 and paceman Peter Heine 21.
India staged two remarkable comebacks in the 1970s, firstly at home against the mighty West Indies in 1974/75, then away to Australia in 1977/78.
In the 1974/75 series the Windies introduced Viv Richards, Gordon Greenidge and Andy Roberts to the world of Test cricket. All three made an immediate impact.
Richards averaged 50 and Greenidge 41 with each also hitting a century. Roberts led the attack with 32 wickets at 18.28 apiece.
However, skipper Clive Lloyd was the batting star averaging 79.50 including a knock of 242 not out. Alvin Kallicharran averaged 56.75 while veteran off spinner Lance Gibbs captured 21 wickets at 21.62.
The man responsible for helping India back into the series was diminutive batsman Gunduppa Viswanath. He led the Indian counter-attack almost single-handedly, averaging 63.11.
Naturally, their champion spinners were prominent with wickets, although expensive. Bishen Bedi and Erapally Prasanna each captured 15 wickets and Bhagwat Chandrasekhar 14.
1977/78 was the first season of World Series Cricket, with most of the best Aussie players involved. Veteran Bobby Simpson was recalled to lead a young and inexperienced Australian establishment team and he didn’t disappoint, averaging 53.90 with the bat including two centuries.
Wayne Clark was surprisingly the best bowler with 28 wickets at 25.04 while speedster Jeff Thomson captured 22 wickets at 23.45.
The Indian batting was solid. Viswanath again excelled, averaging 52.56 without a century. His brother-in-law Sunny Gavaskar averaged an even 50 including three centuries, while Mohinder Amarnath averaged 49.44. Another three batsmen averaged in the 30s.
Skipper Bedi led the bowling attack with 31 wickets at 23.87, followed closely by Chandra with 28 at 25.14.
So there you have it.
In all the history of Test cricket, only six teams have managed to come back from 0-2 to level at 2-2, and only one team, Bradman’s 1936/37 Aussies, have managed to go on and secure the series from 0-2 down.
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