1977
Forty-five, twice
The Centenary Test at Melbourne in 1977 was a one-off, outside any series, played to mark a hundred years of the first Test on the same ground. Australia won it by 45 runs, which is what they had won the first one by.
The card calls it the Only Test, Melbourne, 12 to 17 March 1977, and numbers it 800. It belonged to no series and had no series line. It was played to mark a hundred years since the first Test, on the same ground, and Australia won it by 45 runs, which was the margin the first time.
Two low totals
England put Australia in and bowled them out for 138 on the first day. Greg Chappell made 40 from 139 balls; nobody else passed 28. Derek Underwood took three for 16 in 11.6 overs, and the overs were eight balls, which is why the card has figures ending in .6 and .7.
England made 95. Dennis Lillee took six for 26 in 13.3 overs, Max Walker four for 54, and the top score was Tony Greig’s 18. Two innings had gone in less than two days, and the match that was meant to be a celebration was 138 plays 95.
Full scorecard: Australia v England, Centenary Test, Melbourne, 12–17 March 1977 →
Four hundred and nineteen
Australia’s second innings was 419 for nine declared. Ian Davis made 68, Doug Walters 66, David Hookes 56 in 69 balls on debut, and Rod Marsh 110 not out from 173. Rick McCosker, who had opened in the first innings, came in at number ten and made 25; the card’s coverage list carries the headline about his broken jaw. Chris Old took four for 104.
The target was 463. England were 191 for two at the close of the fourth day, Derek Randall 87 not out.
Randall
Randall made 174 from 353 balls in 446 minutes, with 21 fours, and was fifth out at 346, caught Cosier bowled O’Keeffe. Dennis Amiss made 64 and put on 166 with him for the third wicket. Alan Knott made 42 and was last out, leg before to Lillee, with the total on 417.
Lillee bowled 34.4 overs for five for 139, and eleven wickets in the match. Kerry O’Keeffe took three. Chappell bowled 16 overs, seven maidens, for 29 and the wicket of Amiss. England fell 45 short, and Randall was player of the match in a Test his side lost.
The number
The card’s result line reads Australia won by 45 runs. The first Test, at Melbourne in March 1877, had ended with the same words and the same number, and the card of that match is the first in the sequence this one is the 800th of. The repetition was nobody’s doing. A hundred years and 799 Tests apart, two sides produced the same difference.
It is the sort of thing a card records without noticing. The margin is arithmetic on two totals, and the arithmetic happened to match. What makes it unrepeatable is that the match itself was: a Test outside any series, on the ground of the first, with the number 800, for a reason that comes round once.
Two umpires, one debut
Max O’Connell and Tom Brooks stood. Hookes was the only debutant, and his 56 came in the innings that set up the win. The Tuesday was a rest day, which is how a five-day Test occupied six dates, and the fifth day was the one on which 226 runs were scored and eight wickets fell before the 45 was reached.
What the card holds
A total of 95 and a total of 417 by the same side in the same match. Eleven wickets for Lillee and 174 for Randall. A keeper’s hundred, not out, in the innings that set the target. And a margin of 45, which the card gives without comment, because the card that it echoes is 799 matches back and the two are not on the same page.
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No. 7 in Unrepeatable, a series of 22.
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