December 5, 1950 – When Australia won after declaring their innings on 32/7

Brisbane’s Woolloongabba Stadium witnessed quite a few significant and exciting Test matches in the history and the opening Test of the 1950 Ashes series being one of them. Australia came into the series holding the Ashes urn for 16 years as they won four of the previous five series and seven wins in last nine Tests in the prestigious tournament. The game started on December 1st with the home side electing to bat first and getting bowled out for 228.

Neil Harvey top-scored for the Aussies with 75 while the England pacer Sir Alec Bedser and Trevor Bailey shared seven wickets among them to keep the home side to a moderate total. England’s opening pair made a successful appeal against the light to ensure they didn’t had to bat in the final minutes. A storm washed out the 2nd day and no possibility of resumption on the rest day. The game finally resumed on the 3rd day (December 4) about thirty minutes before Lunch.

The pitch turned in the favour of medium pacers as the Australian left-arm pacer Bill Johnston and Keith Miller ran through the England line-up who crumbled from 49/1 to 67/7. With their main batters back in the hut, England skipper Freddie Brown decided to declare their innings on 68/7 in 22 overs to get Australia bat in those tough conditions which did work in their favour.

The record declaration:

The Bedser and Bailey pair once again produced troubles to the home side by reducing them to 32/7 by the 14th over. The Australians came out with a similar tactic that of England as their skipper Lindsay Hassett declared the innings at 32/7. Australia’s 32 is the lowest declared total in Test cricket excluding the 2000 Centurion Test where England and South Africa declared/forfeited their innings. Interestingly, England’s 68/7 stands at 3rd on this list as Windies declared their innings at 51/7 in the Bridgetown Test back in 1935.

England walked out to bat with a target off 193 runs in the last session of the 3rd day. Ray Lindwall, Johnston and Jack Iverson reduced the visiting side to 30/6 by end of the day’s play. England sent in two sacrificial night watchmen on the 3rd day hoping for pitch getting better on the 4th day and having enough batting to chase the target. England’s plans did work but they needed 163 runs with only four wickets in hand. Len Hutton, batting at No.8, scored an unbeaten 62 but could only take their total to 122.