Opinion
When India was bowled out in Adelaide for 36 last week, the lowest completed innings totals in Test match history flashed up on the screen.
New Zealand’s 26 all out is at the top of the list and South Africa’s set of low scores all took place when those countries were weak and in the early days of their Test match history – but Australia’s lowest ever total was by a very strong team.
In 1902, also in the first Test match of a series, the touring Australians were embarrassed when they were routed for just 36 in the first-ever Test played in Birmingham.
After England had made 376, captain Archie McLaren declared 9 wickets down as rain intervened. The Australian innings lasted just 85 minutes on a quagmire and Victor Trumper scored half of the runs.
The two Yorkshire spinners, Wilfred Rhodes and George Hirst bowled all but one of the overs. Hirst (3-15) proved very difficult to get away so the visitors hit out at Rhodes (7-17) very unsuccessfully.
Following on, Australia was 2 for 46 when more rain washed out the match.
The tour became even worse as Yorkshire’s Hirst and Stanley Jackson bowled the Australians out for just 23. Several players caught a severe and lingering influenza; rain saw crowds stay away and some newcomers became so depressed that rumours of them packing up and heading home were aired.
Even 38-year-old, Dr. Roland Pope, had to be called into the team to play the next match against Cambridge University.
(Steven Paston – EMPICS/Getty Images)
Pope had played one Test in 1886 and now 16 years later he was again a follower of the team and never an official member of it.
Hugh Trumble, the first great Australian off-spinner, had missed the first Test with a dislocated thumb and was still unavailable for the next Test at Lord’s.
Influenza kept Bill Howell out, while MA Noble and captain, Joe Darling, played with the flu and Jack Saunders had severe tonsillitis and an inflamed eye.
Only 105 minutes of play was possible for the second Test as the Australians must have been pleased to have had a chance to recover.
Who would have given the Australian tourists any chance at this stage of the so-called summer? Yet they fought back with a victory in the third Test as Noble took 11 wickets before two of the finest Test matches ever played followed.
An incredibly dramatic three-run win by Australia at Old Trafford saw the Ashes won by Australia for whom Trumper became the first to make a century before lunch on the first day.
In the final Test, England’s Gilbert Jessop scored a 75-minute century and with 15 runs still needed, who were the two home batsmen left to secure a nerve-wracking victory? None other than the destroyers in Australia’s all-out 36: Rhodes and Hirst.
So Roarers, can the Indians come back from their 36 all out to level in the current series as these Australians did so remarkably 118 years ago?
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