England v Australia 4th Test

A huge total and a bigger reply

England batted first at Headingley in the fourth Test of the 1948 Ashes, with the series already 2-0 to Australia after two wins and a draw, and the home side needing a win to keep any realistic hope of the series alive. Cyril Washbrook scored 143 and Bill Edrich 111, with Leonard Hutton and Alec Bedser, promoted to number four as a makeshift batter, also passing fifty. Ray Lindwall took 2 for 79 and Bill Johnston 1 for 86 from long, demanding spells in front of a packed Headingley crowd. It was a substantial total against a strong Australian attack, but Don Bradman's tourists answered it with 458 of their own. Neil Harvey, 19 years old and playing his second Test, made 112, an innings that announced him as a batter of real class, and Sam Loxton 93, while Bradman himself made a relatively quiet 33 before he was bowled. Alec Bedser and Jim Laker took three wickets apiece, Bedser bowling with the metronomic accuracy that had made him the leading seam bowler in England that summer, and Laker offering the first glimpse of the off spin that would later make him famous against this same opponent. Down the order Ray Lindwall, batting rather than bowling this time, made a rapid 77 to help push Australia within 38 of England's total, and Hutton and Washbrook had themselves put on 168 for England's first wicket before either fell, the platform on which the innings of 496 was built.

England's second innings

England batted again with a lead of only 38, and again found runs. Cyril Washbrook and Leonard Hutton put on 129 for the first wicket, a repeat of the opening stand from the first innings, and Denis Compton and Bill Edrich added 103 for the third, with Compton making 66 in what was becoming a consistent series for him. Godfrey Evans made an unbeaten 47 down the order, batting with the freedom of a wicketkeeper who had already done his job with the gloves. England declared at 365 for 8, with Bill Johnston taking 4 for 95 from a long, tireless spell of left-arm pace and swing. Australia were left needing 404 to win in a little under a day's play, a target far beyond anything achieved before in Test history, with Norman Yardley's declaration timed to leave Australia the fewest possible overs to get there.

A target of 404 in a day

No side had ever chased more than 300 successfully to win a Test match at that point, and most judges before the final day expected Australia to bat cautiously and settle for a draw against a target that size, protecting an Ashes lead they already held. England's captain Norman Yardley set defensive fields and turned to part-time bowling, Denis Compton included, to try to slow Australia down and force mistakes on a pitch that had begun to take some turn overnight, a surface some England players believed would help their spinners more than it eventually did. Bradman's side, though, had the whole of the last day to bat and were unwilling to settle for a draw when a genuine chance of victory was in front of them.

Morris and Bradman

Arthur Morris and Lindsay Hassett put on 57 for the first wicket before Hassett was out for 17, and from there Morris and Bradman took over completely. The pair added 301 for the second wicket, the biggest partnership of the match by some distance, batting through session after session without England's bowlers finding a way to separate them. Morris played the anchor role for long stretches while Bradman, at 39 years old and playing what everybody knew would be his last tour of England, found the timing and placement that had made him the game's outstanding batter for two decades. Morris was finally caught for 182, one of the finest innings of his career. Bradman went on unbeaten, finishing on 173 as Australia reached the target with seven wickets and two hours to spare. Keith Miller made 12 before he was lbw, one of only three wickets to fall in the entire chase.

The target falls

Australia won by 7 wickets, and 404 for 3 became the new benchmark for a successful fourth-innings chase in Test cricket, a mark that stood for more than half a century until West Indies chased down a higher total against Australia at Antigua in 2003, a match also covered in this archive. Ken Cranston, Norman Yardley and Denis Compton shared the three wickets to fall, though it was the wicketless Alec Bedser and Dick Pollard who bowled the tightest, both going for well under three runs an over, a measure of how comfortably Morris and Bradman had controlled the chase despite the size of the target. England had bowled defensively for long periods, but even attacking fields would have found it hard to break a partnership played with such certainty by two batters completely in control of the situation.

The Invincibles

The 1948 tourists went through the entire English season, Tests and county matches together, without losing a single game, and are remembered in Australia as the Invincibles. Neil Harvey's first-innings century and Sam Loxton's 93 had already shown the depth behind Bradman in the batting order, and Bill Johnston, who took four wickets when England declared their second innings on 365, bowled long, tireless spells throughout the match in support of Ray Lindwall and Keith Miller at the head of the Australian attack. It was Bradman's last tour of England as a player, a farewell that would end a few weeks later at the Oval with the famous duck that left his career Test average just short of 100. Headingley was the innings in which Bradman's 173 not out, made with a chase of that size still in front of him and at an age when most batters of his era had already retired, is often ranked among the best of his career precisely because of the situation it came in rather than the number alone. The full scorecard, with every partnership and fall of wicket across all four innings, is on this page. See how the two sides were built on the England and Australia team pages, and in The Follow-On you can bat for Australia against a strong England attack and try to chase down a target on the last day the way Morris and Bradman did.

Sources

• CricArcade Test archive: the full scorecard, fall of wickets and partnerships on this page
• ESPNcricinfo: England v Australia, 4th Test, Headingley, 1948, scorecard and report
• Wisden Cricketers' Almanack 1949: the Australians in England