Five for one in 28 balls

The Edgbaston card of 1981 has one note under match flow. It sits under Australia’s second innings and reads: Botham took 5 wickets for 1 run in 28 balls. Above it are four innings, 189, 258, 219 and 121, and a result line reading England won by 29 runs. The highest individual score on the card is 48.

Three innings without a fifty

England chose to bat and were all out for 189 on the first day, Mike Brearley 48, Terry Alderman five for 42. Australia made 258, Kim Hughes 47 and Martin Kent 46 on debut, John Emburey four for 43, with 44 extras.

England’s second innings was 219, Mike Gatting 39, Emburey 37 not out, Ray Bright five for 68 in 34 overs. The lead was 150 and the target 151. Australia were 9 for one at the close of the third day, Wood already gone, with Dyson and Border together and two full days in which to make 142.

Full scorecard: England v Australia, 4th Test, Edgbaston, 30 July–2 August 1981 →

The days

The close-of-play lines: Australia 19 for two on the first evening, England 49 for one in their second innings on the second, Australia 9 for one in their chase on the third, and the end of the match on the fourth. Every day ended with a different innings in progress, and the whole match took 315 overs. Geoff Boycott’s 29 in England’s second innings took 136 balls and 190 minutes, and Australia’s first-innings extras of 44 included 21 no-balls.

The ledger of 121

Graeme Wood, leg before to Chris Old, 2. John Dyson, leg before to Bob Willis, 13. Allan Border, caught Gatting bowled Emburey, 40, from 175 balls in 213 minutes. Hughes, caught Emburey bowled Willis, 5. Graham Yallop, caught Botham bowled Emburey, 30. Kent, bowled Botham, 10. Rod Marsh, bowled Botham, 4. Bright, leg before to Botham, 0, first ball. Dennis Lillee, caught Taylor bowled Botham, 3. Rodney Hogg, not out 0. Alderman, bowled Botham, 0.

The fall of wickets: 2, 19, 29, 87, 105, 114, 114, 120, 121, 121. Botham’s figures: 14 overs, nine maidens, 11 runs, five wickets. Emburey 22 overs for 40 and two, Willis 20 for 37 and two, Old 11 for 19 and one.

Where the 28 balls sit

Australia were 105 for five when Border went, needing 46 with five wickets left, on the fourth afternoon. The last five wickets fell for 16, and the card’s note says five of the wickets, for one run, were Botham’s, inside 28 balls. Kent, Marsh, Bright, Lillee, Alderman. Two bowled, one leg before, one caught behind, one bowled. The note does not say which 28 balls, and the fall of wickets narrows it to the last 16 runs of the match.

Two Tests, one fortnight

Edgbaston began nine days after the end of Headingley, where England had won after following on and Willis had taken eight for 43. This card is the one after: a lower-scoring match, a smaller margin, no hundred and no fifty, and the same player of the match, for 26, one for 64 and five for 11.

The card’s series line reads England led the six-match series 2-1. Alderman took eight wickets in the match and Bright seven, on the losing side, and it is Test number 906.

What the card holds

Four innings and no fifty. A first-innings deficit of 69 and a win by 29. A number five who batted 213 minutes for 40. A spell of 28 balls that the scorer thought worth a sentence, in a match otherwise recorded without comment. And the umpires, Dickie Bird and Don Oslear, who gave the leg-before to Bright first ball with the total on 114.

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No. 16 in Collapse, a series of 16.

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