How do cricket enthusiasts amuse themselves in lockdown when there’s no live cricket to watch?
Some stay immersed in the sport by reading, writing, tweeting, creating trivia quizzes and coming up with their various best XIs much, much more than normal.
Others post YouTube clips of past games, take requests and have campaigns for royal honours to be bestowed upon them.
The imagination runs wild in others. The creation of an end-of-season cricket presentation evening
Meanwhile, a virtual County Championship is being played out.
The most ‘viral’ of all of these must be Mark Church, who is playing a Test series against his back wall and his garden furniture.
This takes us back almost 50 years ago, when just before the 1971-72 Australian summer season began something strange occurred that a lockdown cannot explain.
An imaginary Ashes Test match was played out over five days via a computer. A team of workers at the National Cash Register Corporation had made a detailed analysis of every run score and ball bowled in an Ashes Test in the United Kingdom since 1921. The data was fed into their computers which then converted it into probability tables about individual players.
Sir Donald Bradman had surprisingly agreed to select a team from the best players from the last 50 years to represent Australia. When no Stan McCabe or Clarrie Grimmett were chosen, eyebrows were raised. George ‘Gubby’ Allen, who was then president of the MCC, selected the English team to oppose them. The toss was done via radio-telephone link-up between England captain Peter May and Don Bradman. The latter chose to bat first at Lords in the computer ‘Test of the Century’.
There was quite a bit of publicity as cricket followers keenly checked their newspaper for the progress of the computer Test. Some are even pictured in Sydney watching a TV monitor at the NCR House as results were flashed up. However, when Bradman, whose average against England was 89.78, was caught and bowled by Hedley Verity for just 22 on the first day, many lost interest and regard for the experiment.
Harold Larwood’s failure to take a wicket in each innings and Neil Harvey and Bob Simpson’s double failures were among the other surprises that had to be defended by the NRC team.
The ‘Test’ regained some credibility when Bradman scored 222 in the second innings during a partnership of 265 with Arthur Morris.
When Australia ended up winning by 165 runs, Bill O’Reilly had taken only a wicket in each innings and was “glad this strange Test is over”. He warned his Sydney Morning Herald readers to “take heed of this mechanical accountancy and its inroads into the hallowed field of sporting endeavour”.
When there is no sporting endeavour to enjoy in 2020, however, the warning has not been heeded, as the imagination has time to be inventive and keep alive the noble game in the strangest ways. Even the cantankerous O’Reilly had to admit that he was pleased that Australia had won “so handily” in Bradman’s ‘last’ Test match.
(Photo by PA Images via Getty Images)
Australia
| Player | First innings | Second Innings |
|---|---|---|
| AR Morris | lbw Laker 39 | b Tate 142 |
| WH Ponsford | b Verity 81 | b Laker 14 |
| DG Bradman | c and b Verity 22 | c Hutton b Verity 222 |
| CG Macartney | b Verity 31 | c Evans b Tate 1 |
| RN Harvey | b Hammond 4 | lbw Laker 12 |
| RB Simpson | c Hobbs b Verity | 18 b Laker 13 |
| KR Miller | lbw Tate | 75 c Larwood b Laker 0 |
| R Benaud | c Compton b Tate | 22 c Evans b Verity 5 |
| RR Lindwall | c Evans b Laker 15 | c Tate b Hammond 15 |
| D Tallon | not out 6 | c and b Verity 0 |
| WJ O’Reilly | b Tate 0 | not out 7 |
| Extras | 8 | 6 |
| Total | 321 | 437 |
| Tate | 33.3-9-84-3 | 34-16-73-2 |
| Larwood | 26-4-75-0 | 25-6-78-0 |
| Hammond | 25-4-76-1 | 36.3-7-101-1 |
| Laker | 24-5-47-2 | 41-8-105-4 |
| Verity | 20-9-31-4 | 33-9-74-3 |
England
| Player | Fisrt innings | Second innings |
|---|---|---|
| JB Hobbs | b Lindwall 8 | c Tallon b Miller 60 |
| L Hutton | c Tallon b Miller 86 | b Lindwall 21 |
| WR Hammond | b Miller 10 | c and b Benaud 58 |
| DCS Compton | b Miller 5 | c Miller b Benaud 25 |
| M Leyland | b Benaud 80 | run out 60 |
| PBH May | not out 38 | c Tallon b Miller 54 |
| TG Evans | lbw Miller 1 | b O’Reilly 30 |
| H Larwood | c Lindwall b Miller 7 | c O’Reilly b Miller 8 |
| JC Laker | b Lindwall 17 | c Simpson b Benaud 1 |
| M Tate | b Lindwall 0 | b Benaud 2 |
| H Verity | b O’Reilly 8 | not out 0 |
| Extras | 6 | 6 |
| Total | 266 | 327 |
| Lindwall | 29-7-57-3 | 29-3-91-1 |
| Miller | 27-10-46-5 | 29-7-65-3 |
| O’Reilly | 29-5-61-1 | 31-9-97-1 |
| Benaud | 25-5-70-1 | 27-7-66-4 |
| Macartney | 10-1-26-0 |
Australia won by 165 runs
Rellum
Roar Guru
Mark Church is an amateur, I played out a whole shield season as a kid against the brick wall. Golf ball, left handers and all the stats recorded.
Just Nuisance
Roar Rookie
A bit of useless information.. In a recent interview the Captain of South Africa in the 1970s Dr Ali Bacher admitted to corresponding with Sir Donald Bradman. Bacher sent Bradman a letter discussing various technical aspects of the game.. One day in his Doctors surgery he received an 8 page handwritten response from Bradman. He wrily admitted to the interviewee Michael Atherton that having read it he binned it.. It would have been the most prized souvenir today of his substantial collection.
Tigerbill44
Roar Guru
Enjoyed it. Didn't know about it.
elvis
Roar Rookie
Bowling poor old Miller into the ground.
JGK
Roar Guru
Apparently it was called the Living Legends Computer Test. Can't find a scorecard anywhere but here is a picture of the team Aust team list. https://www.leski.com.au/m/lot-details/index/catalog/91/lot/42693/1988-Bicentennial-Test-Living-Legends-team-sheet-with-12-signatures-including-Don-Bradman-Bill-Ponsford-Richie-Benaud-amp-Lindsay-Hassett?uact=5&aid=91&lid=40575¤t_page=0
Mark Scarfe
Roar Guru
I remember seeing that on the scoreboard when I was at the game.
Rowdy
Roar Rookie
On Bradman I agree with Clarrie, Tiger, Stan & Vic. Something about smoke n fire. ---- I was reading how Don replaced Vic as SA captain then Vic gets made captain to play the Saffers on the 1935 tour. A happy harmonious tour was had by all.
Pope Paul VII
Roar Rookie
Never heard of this one. Memory challenged but I think there was a computer test done in conjunction with the 1977 Centenary Test. I think Braddles got 8 and 68 in that one.
Peter Farrar
Roar Pro
How interesting. I had never heard of this. If I recall anything that involved a '"computer generated" sport it was a boxing match between Muhammad Ali and....Rocky Marciano I think it was.
josh
Roar Rookie
You can do this yourself now with games like Cricket Captain. The Classic Series on Cricket Captain can be entertaining. It's all alorithims based on compiled data like CricViz do, cricket is game with enough sample points that you could simulate matches pretty well.
matth
Roar Guru
I'd suggest Bradman's failure in the first innings of this one and the one mentioned by JGK may have been tweaked ever so slightly to maintain interest in the match. If he'd rattled off 300 in the first innings it would have all been over. I'm sure there are heaps of these now, all well beyond my abilities to understand how they would do it.
JGK
Roar Guru
They did a similar thing in the 80s and the end of day scorecard was shown at the SCG during the test. It might have coincided with the bicentenary. I vaguely recall Bradman again failed in the first innings but got a ton in the second as Aust won.
Paul
Roar Guru
great stuff, Pat. I remember listening to the wireless each day as the "play" was updated. I recall the stink when Grimmett was left out, but in those days, nobody criticised the Don! I'm guessing his feud with Grimmett might have had a bit to do with his exclusion. I'm also think Tiger might have been less than impressed with his second innings figures. He averaged 1.94 runs per over throughout his Test career, but according to those who set this up, was only good enough to take one wicket and go at better than 3 runs an over, while Benaud took 4 wickets and went at two and a bit? I guess this also means the Don ended up with an average over 100. :happy: :happy: