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). New Zealand, with only four front-line bowlers, were able to contain England's batsmen but struggled to dismiss them. Centuries by Len Hutton and Denis Compton ensured a large score, but England made only 307 runs on the first day, Cowie taking five wickets, and Burtt mopped up the tail on the Monday morning to claim five also. Trevor Bailey, in his first Test, troubled the early batsmen with his pace, and the fourth wicket was down at 80. But Donnelly and Smith put on 120 and Smith went on to score 96. A last-wicket partnership between Mooney and Cowie put on 57 and went into the last morning, but Cowie was injured and could not bowl in England's second innings. Fast scoring by Bill Edrich and George Mann, and less fast by an injured Cyril Washbrook, who scored 103, led to a declaration. But 299 to win in 150 minutes was too much to ask and Sutcliffe, Scott and Smith got batting practice as the game petered out.

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

England (313 for nine declared and 306 for five) drew with New Zealand (484). England lost five wickets for 112, but the pitch got easier and Compton (116) and Bailey (93) put on 189 for the sixth wicket. England's declaration, with 20 minutes of the first day's play still to go, was technically incorrect, but New Zealand did not object. New Zealand opened with 89 from Sutcliffe and Scott, and then Donnelly, making 206 out of 347, the highest score for New Zealand at this point, took the game out of England's reach. Hutton and Jack Robertson opened with a stand of 143 to almost clear the arrears, and Robertson went on to score 121.

Third Test, Manchester, July 23-26, 1949

New Zealand (293 and 348 for seven) drew with England (440 for nine declared). New England captain Freddie Brown put New Zealand in to bat, and Bailey took early wickets in humid conditions. There was also a debut wicket for 18-year-old Brian Close. But Donnelly, with 75, and Reid (50) added 116, and the innings went into the second day. Bailey finished with six for 84. England found it difficult to force the pace against tight bowling and fielding. All the top seven batsmen made runs, with Hutton making 73 and Edrich 78, and Reg Simpson took advantage of a tiring attack to score his first Test century, with 103. Bailey was 72 not out when Brown declared. At 109 for three, New Zealand were vulnerable, but 101 from Sutcliffe and 80 from Donnelly saw them save the match comfortably.

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

New Zealand (345 and 308 for nine declared) drew with England (482). New Zealand, without Mooney, for whom Reid deputised as wicketkeeper, and with Rabone unable to bowl, won the toss for the first time in the series and batted. Sutcliffe and Scott put on 121 for the first wicket, and Wallace passed 50 as well, but the later batsmen were more defensive. The innings lasted into the second day, and then Hutton and Simpson put on 147, and Hutton and Edrich followed up with a second wicket stand of 218 before Hutton was out for 206. Edrich went on to exactly 100, but from 365 for one the innings subsided. Cresswell took six for 168 with inswingers and leg cutters. Though Sutcliffe made 54, four New Zealand wickets went before the arrears were cleared, but Reid, who made 93, and Wallace, with his second 50 of the match, stood firm and the match was saved.

First-class Matches

In 32 first-class matches, the New Zealand tourists won 13 times and lost only once, when they were caught on a drying pitch at Oxford without Cowie, their player best able to exploit such conditions. The team's success was built on the weight of runs that its batsmen provided, and the bowling figures, Burtt apart, were modest.

After a draw against Yorkshire in which both Wallace and Len Hutton scored centuries, New Zealand reeled off victories against Worcestershire and Surrey, and Wallace made it four centuries in five matches in the drawn match with Leicestershire and the victory over Cambridge University.

The MCC match, one of the set-pieces of the cricket calendar, saw a slow draw with New Zealand rescued by a seventh wicket partnership of 176 by Mooney and Rabone. Then came the defeat by Oxford University in a low-scoring match, but the threat of a repeat in the following fixture, against Sussex, when New Zealand trailed by 116 on the first innings, disappeared through good bowling by Cowie and good batting by Reid, Sutcliffe and Donnelly in a successful run-chase. Drawn matches with Somerset and Glamorgan led up to the first Test.

External sources

CricketArchive

References

Wisden Cricketers' Almanack 1950

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