One hundred and sixty-five, retired hurt

The card is numbered Test number 1 and dated 15 to 19 March 1877, Melbourne Cricket Ground. Australia chose to bat. The first name in the first batting table is Charles Bannerman, and the entry beside it reads retired hurt, 165. The total was 245. The result line reads Australia won by 45 runs.

The first day

The card’s notes say Alfred Shaw bowled the first ball, to Bannerman. Nat Thomson was bowled by Allen Hill for 1 with the score 2, the first wicket. Tom Horan was caught by Hill off Shaw for 12 at 40, the first catch. Dave Gregory, the captain, was run out for 1 at 41. Three down for 41, and Bannerman still there.

Bransby Cooper made 15 and the fourth wicket fell at 118. Billy Midwinter 5, Ned Gregory 0: 142 for five, 143 for six. At the close of the first day Australia were 166 for six, Bannerman 126 not out, Jack Blackham 3 not out. The card gives the day’s attendance as about 4,500.

Full scorecard: Australia v England, 1st Test, Melbourne, 15–19 March 1877 →

Retired hurt at 240

Blackham made 17 and was bowled by James Southerton at 197. Then the fall-of-wickets line carries an entry that is not a wicket: 240, Bannerman, retired not out. The note says a ball from George Ulyett split the index finger of his right hand. He had batted 285 minutes by the card’s table and hit 18 fours; the note rounds the time to about 290. A W. Newing fielded for him afterwards.

The innings went from 240 for seven to 245 all out. Tom Garrett was 18 not out, Tom Kendall 3, John Hodges 0. Shaw took three for 51 from 55.3 overs, 34 of them maidens, Southerton three for 61, Hill one for 42. Extras were 8.

The share

The next best score in the innings was Garrett’s 18. Take Bannerman’s 165 out of 245 and Australia made 80 between the other ten batters and the extras. The card’s note works it as a share of the runs from the bat, 165 of 237, and gives 69.6 per cent. Worked against the whole total it is 67.35 per cent, the figure the records use.

No batter has taken a larger share of a completed Test innings since.

Michael Slater’s 123 of 184 at Sydney in 1999 is the nearest anyone has come, and the Sydney card names Bannerman when it says so.

The rest of the match

England replied with 196. Harry Jupp made 63 from 241 balls, leg before to Garrett with the score 145 for seven, and Hill 35 not out from number nine. Midwinter took five for 78 from 54 overs, the first five-wicket haul, as the note has it. Jupp’s 63 was the only score above 40 in the match apart from Bannerman’s.

Australia’s second innings was 104. Bannerman was bowled by Ulyett for 4, and Shaw took five for 38 from 34 overs. They were 83 for nine at the close of the third day, Kendall 5 not out. After the Sunday rest day Kendall reached 17, the last wicket added 21, and England were set 154.

Hill was caught by Thomson off Kendall for 0 with no run scored. Andrew Greenwood 5, Jupp 4, Harry Charlwood 13: 22 for four. John Selby made 38 and Ulyett 24, and the score reached 62 for four and 92 for seven.

Kendall bowled Tom Emmett for 9 with the total at 108 and had seven for 55 from 33.1 overs. The card notes that Shaw, stumped by Blackham off Kendall for 2, was the first man stumped in a Test.

The other names in the notes

The card’s debutant list has all 22 players, which is what a first Test means. Southerton, who took three for 61, was 49 years and 119 days old, and the note says he remains the oldest man to make a Test debut. The umpires were Benjamin Terry and Curtis Reid. The attendance figures given for the four days are about 4,500, 4,000, 10,000 and 2,000.

Bannerman played two more Tests and made 239 runs at 59.75 across the three, and later stood as umpire in twelve Tests between 1887 and 1902. The number 1 on the card was given afterwards. The designation of the match as the first Test, and of the 165 as the first Test century, came when the sequence it began was counted back to its start.

Forty-five

A hundred years later, the Centenary Test on the same ground ended with Australia winning by 45 runs, the margin from this card repeated to the run. That piece looks back at this one. This one has nothing to look back at. It is the first entry in a sequence, and the largest single share of a side’s runs in that sequence sits on its first page, made by a man who did not finish his innings.

What the card holds

A 165 retired hurt out of 245, with 18 fours and a split finger. A 63 as the only other score above 40 in the match. Five for 78, five for 38 and seven for 55. A target of 154 and a reply of 108. Twenty-two debutants, a future umpire at the top of the order, and a number 1 that nobody present knew they were playing under.

••••••

No. 20 in Unrepeatable, a series of 22.

NextDeclared at 729