Ninety-eight, at number eleven

Australia were 117 for nine at Trent Bridge on the second morning of the 2013 Ashes, 98 behind, when Ashton Agar walked out at number eleven in his first Test. He had bowled seven overs the day before. He had not faced a ball in Test cricket.

He made 98.

The stand

Phillip Hughes was at the other end, on 21. The ninth wicket had fallen in the thirty-fourth over, at the drinks break, and the innings had two hours left in it that nobody expected.

The fifty of the stand came off 60 balls, with Agar making 35 of it. The hundred came off 113 balls, Agar 67. At lunch Australia were 229 for nine, Hughes 63 and Agar 69, and the deficit had become a lead. The 150 came off 161 balls.

Agar’s own fifty took 50 balls, with seven fours and a six. He was caught by Graeme Swann off Stuart Broad for 98, from 101 balls, with twelve fours and two sixes, and Australia were all out for 280. The last wicket had added 163. Hughes was 81 not out from 131 balls.

What the number is

Ninety-eight is the highest score a number eleven has made in a Test, and the highest by anyone on debut at eleven. The 163 was the highest tenth-wicket stand in the history of Test cricket when it was made. It lasted a year, and the stand that passed it was made on the same ground.

The card records all of it as a batting line and a partnership note. It does not record that the man who made 98 had been picked as a bowler, that he was nineteen, or that two runs short of a hundred on debut is a thing nobody had ever had to feel before.

The other end

Hughes batted at six and came in at 53 for four. He was there for 227 of Australia’s 280 runs, made 81 of them from 131 balls in 222 minutes, and was not dismissed. His fifty took 94 balls. He is on the card as the man who was still there when it ended, which is what the other end always looks like.

Full scorecard: England v Australia, 1st Test, Trent Bridge, 10–14 July 2013 →

The match around it

England had made 215, Peter Siddle taking five for 50. Australia’s 280 gave them a lead of 65. England then made 375, Ian Bell 109 and Broad 65, and set Australia 311.

Australia made 296. Brad Haddin made 71 and the last wicket added 65, and England won by 14 runs when Haddin was given caught behind off James Anderson on review. Anderson took five for 85 and five for 73 and was named player of the match. The match ended on a review, which is the modern version of ending on an umpire.

The edge

The card carries the other thing this Test is remembered for in its coverage list rather than its columns. Broad did not walk for an edge in England’s second innings and was given not out. He went on to 65, England’s eventual margin was 14, and the argument about it has never entirely stopped. The card records 65, caught behind off James Pattinson, and nothing before it.

What the card holds

A number eleven making 98 on debut. A stand of 163 that began at 117 for nine. A partner who made 81 not out and was present for 227 of the total. A win by 14 in a match where one man was given not out and another was out two short of a hundred. Both of those facts are on the same document, one in the columns and one in the headlines underneath.

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No. 12 in The Other Guy, a series of 24.

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