New Zealand cricket team in England in 1949

The New Zealand cricket team toured England in the 1949 season. The team was the fourth official touring side from New Zealand, following those in 1927, 1931 and 1937, and was by some distance the most successful to this date. The four-match Test series with England was shared, every game ending as a draw, and of 35 first-class fixtures, 14 were won, 20 drawn and only one lost.

Background

New Zealand had had very limited Test cricket in recent years. The last full tour of England had been in 1937, and since the Second World War there had been only two single matches, one against Australia in 1945-46 and the other the following season against the touring MCC team led by Walter Hammond. Consequently many of the New Zealand players were untested at the highest level of the game.

By contrast, England had played full series both at home and abroad in every summer and winter since the end of the war, though with mixed results. The team had been comprehensively outplayed twice by Australia, and though other results against India, South Africa and West Indies had been better, there had been considerable experimentation with new players, and only a handful of players could consider themselves certainties for selection were England to choose to field its strongest side.

The New Zealand team

The side consisted of 15 players and was led by Walter Hadlee, who was one of four players – the others were Merv Wallace, Martin Donnelly and Jack Cowie – who had toured with the 1937 team.

The side was:

Jack Phillipps, the tour manager, played in one minor match against Durham (not then first-class). Reid, a lively fast bowler as well as a batsman, was used as the second wicketkeeper and had to deputise in the fourth Test for Mooney, who was unfit. Of the 15 players, 13 appeared in the Test matches. The exceptions were Burke, who had played his only Test match in the game against Australia in 1945-46, and Hayes, who was injured for much of this tour but became a regular player for New Zealand across much of the 1950s, touring England again in 1958. Cave, Reid and Sutcliffe also toured with the 1958 side.

The Test matches

The four Test matches were allocated only three days each. After the first two matches ended in draws, the New Zealanders were asked if they would add an extra day to each of the last two matches. After consulting with their domestic cricket board, the tourists turned the idea down, arguing that this would have disrupted their commitments to county matches.

First Test, Leeds, June 11-14, 1949

England (372 and 267 for four declared) drew with New Zealand (341 and 195 for two).

Second Test, Lord's, June 25-28, 1949

England (313 for nine declared and 306 for five) drew with New Zealand (484).

Third Test, Manchester, July 23-26, 1949

New Zealand (293 and 348 for seven) drew with England (440 for nine declared).

Fourth Test, The Oval, August 13-16, 1949

New Zealand (345 and 308 for nine declared) drew with England (482).

External sources

CricketArchive

References

Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians - various publications
Playfair Cricket Annual
Wisden Cricketers Almanack 2006

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