England v Australia 3rd Test

Australia in command

Ian Botham had resigned as England captain after the second Test of the 1981 Ashes, and Mike Brearley, who had led the side before him, was recalled for the third Test at Headingley. Nobody watching the first four days would have guessed the match would be remembered as Botham's. Kim Hughes won the toss for Australia and batted, and his side built a long, comfortable total. John Dyson made 102, Kim Hughes 89, and Graham Yallop 58, with Dyson and Trevor Chappell adding 94 for the second wicket and Yallop and Hughes 112 for the fifth. Ian Botham, playing as one bowler among several rather than as captain, still finished with 6 for 95 from over 39 overs, but Australia batted deep and declared on 401 for 9, Dennis Lillee and Terry Alderman unbeaten at the end.

England forced to follow on

England's reply fell apart. Graham Gooch was out lbw for 2 in the first over of note, and only Botham, with a quick 50 off 54 balls, offered any real resistance. Dennis Lillee took 4 for 49, Terry Alderman 3 for 59 and Geoff Lawson 3 for 32, and England were all out for 174, 227 runs behind. With more than two days left in the match, Hughes took the decision that would define the game: he asked England to follow on rather than bat again himself. It was the conventional move, and it would be second-guessed for years afterwards.

Five hundred to one

England's second innings began as badly as the first. Graham Gooch was out without scoring, and by the time Mike Gatting fell the score was 41 for 4. England were now 41 for 4 in their second innings, still 186 runs behind with six wickets standing, and a heavy defeat looked like the only possible outcome. It was around this point, according to the story that has been told ever since, that a Headingley bookmaker offered odds of 500 to 1 against an England win, and that Dennis Lillee and Rod Marsh had a bet on the outcome at those odds. Geoff Boycott and Peter Willey steadied things briefly, adding 64 for the fifth wicket, but when Boycott was out for 46 England were 133 for 6, still needing to bat out the best part of two days simply to save the match, let alone win it.

Botham's day

Botham walked in with the game apparently gone and began playing shots. He and Graham Dilley put on 117 for the eighth wicket, Dilley making 56 of his own, and by the time Dilley was out England had at least given themselves something to bowl at. Botham kept going. Chris Old joined him for a stand of 67 for the ninth wicket, and Bob Willis added 37 more for the last wicket before he was out, by which time Botham had reached exactly 149, unbeaten off 148 balls, one of the most famous scores in Test cricket. England were all out for 356, Terry Alderman finishing with 6 for 135, which left Australia needing 130 runs to win on a pitch that had already shown signs of wear.

Willis at the Kirkstall Lane end

A target of 130 should have been a formality for a side that had made 401 in its first innings, and Graeme Wood and John Dyson took Australia to 13 without loss. From there the innings disintegrated. Bob Willis, bowling fast and straight from the Kirkstall Lane end, took over, and wickets fell in clusters: Australia were 58 for 4, then 68 for 6, then 75 for 8. Willis finished with 8 for 43 from just over 15 overs, the innings collapsing from one end almost entirely on his own effort, with Chris Old and Botham sharing the other two wickets to fall. Ray Bright, batting at number 8, made 19 and Dennis Lillee 17, briefly threatening one last twist, but Australia were all out for 111. England had won by 18 runs, completing a match that few sides forced to follow on with a 227-run deficit have ever come close to winning.

Three ducks in an afternoon

The scorecard of Australia's second innings reads like a horror film with the middle removed. John Dyson, so patient for his century in the first innings, made 34 before he was caught behind, and Graeme Wood was caught for 10 off only 10 balls. Then came the sequence that turned a contest into a rout: Kim Hughes was caught by Botham off a ball he barely got a stroke to for a duck, Graham Yallop, who had made a fluent 58 in the first innings, was caught by Mike Gatting off just 3 balls without scoring, and Allan Border, normally the most obdurate batter in the side, was bowled without scoring too. Three ducks fell inside a handful of overs, and Australia went from a position of comfort to 58 for 4 and then, in the same spell, to 68 for 6.

Only Ray Bright, playing the calm role that the top order had abandoned, made anything of substance in the second innings, striking 19 from 32 balls with two boundaries before he too was bowled. Rod Marsh, so often the man to dig Australia out of trouble, was caught off Graham Dilley for just 4, and even Dennis Lillee's defiant 17 could not delay the inevitable. It was, in the end, a collapse built from small mistakes against relentless, straight fast bowling rather than any one moment of magic, which is part of why it has been picked apart in such detail ever since.

What it started

Headingley 1981 was only the second time in Test history that a side had won after being forced to follow on, and it turned the Ashes. England went on to win the series, and Botham followed his Headingley innings with more decisive performances in the Tests that came after it, batting and bowling England to victory again at Edgbaston and Old Trafford in the weeks that followed, a run of form that gave the series its lasting name, Botham's Ashes. For Australia, the decision to enforce the follow-on, and Rod Marsh and Dennis Lillee's reported bet against their own side at long odds, became part of the match's enduring story, though it was Willis's bowling on the final day that actually won it.

The full scorecard for this match, including every fall of wicket and partnership, is on this page. You can follow both sides further on their England and Australia team pages, and in The Follow-On you can pick either XI and see whether you can pull off a chase, or defend a small target, the way these two sides did at Headingley.

Sources

• CricArcade Test archive: the full scorecard, fall of wickets and partnerships on this page
• ESPNcricinfo: England v Australia 1981, third Test scorecard and report
• Wisden Cricketers' Almanack 1982: the Headingley Test