Cowans’s six for 77

Australia needed 292 at Melbourne in December 1982 and made 288. The last wicket added 70, Ian Botham took it, and the card carries a note that the two batters declined 29 comfortable singles on the way. Norman Cowans took six for 77. He is the player of the match and he is not the story anyone tells.

Four innings, ten runs apart

England 284, Australia 287, England 294, Australia 288. The card notes that for the first time in a Test in which all forty wickets fell, all four totals were within 10 runs of each other. Each of the first three days ended with an innings complete, and the fourth ended with Australia 255 for nine, Allan Border 44 not out, Jeff Thomson 8.

Australia had been 218 for nine, and Cowans had taken six of the nine. Kepler Wessels bowled. Greg Chappell caught by a substitute for 2. David Hookes caught Willis for 68, after Hookes and Kim Hughes had put on 100. Rod Marsh leg before, Bruce Yardley bowled for 0, Rodney Hogg leg before. Australia went from 171 for three to 218 for nine on the fourth day, and Cowans took four of the six wickets and caught a fifth.

Full scorecard: Australia v England, 4th Test, Melbourne, 26–30 December 1982 →

Thirty-seven on the last morning

The last day began with 37 needed and one wicket left. Border and Thomson took the score from 255 to 288, thirty-three runs, before Thomson was caught by Geoff Miller off Botham. The chance went first to Chris Tavaré, who parried it, and Miller caught the rebound.

The card gives it as c Miller b Botham 21, from 62 balls and 129 minutes, and says nothing about the parry. The partnership of 70 took 128 minutes, and the card records the 29 singles not taken as if it were a bowling figure.

The margin was three, which was the same margin as Old Trafford in 1902, in the other direction.

The other nine

Cowans, 26 overs, six maidens, 77 runs, six wickets. Botham, 25.1 overs for 80 and two: John Dyson caught Tavaré, and Thomson. Derek Pringle one, Miller one, Bob Willis none for 57. Botham took the wicket the match is named for, and the card notes that it completed his double of 1,000 runs and 100 wickets against Australia, in 22 Tests. Cowans took six of the ten and the note says nothing about him.

In the first innings he had taken two for 69, including Chappell caught first ball. His match figures were eight for 146, and the player of the match line has his name on it. He was 21, in his first year of Test cricket, and the card’s note on the last wicket is about Botham’s double.

What else is recorded

Marsh, the card notes, became the first Australian to appear in 90 Tests, and his 27 dismissals in the series passed the record of John Waite. The MCG became the first ground to host 75 Tests. Chris Tavaré made 89 in the first innings from 165 balls and was bowled for 0 in the second, and Graeme Fowler made 65 in the second after 4 in the first.

Australia had put England in. Australia led the series 2-1 after the match, and the card’s series line is the record of how close England came to going into the fifth Test level.

What the card holds

Four totals inside ten runs. A last wicket worth 70 and a note counting the singles not taken. A slip catch recorded in the plainest way, c Miller b Botham, with nothing said about how it got there. And six for 77 from a bowler whose name is on the card twice, as a wicket-taker six times and as the player of the match once, and in the story of the match not at all.

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No. 14 in The Other Guy, a series of 24.

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