Fred Tate’s four

Fred Tate batted at eleven for England at Old Trafford on 26 July 1902 with eight runs needed to win the Test and level the series. The card gives him 4 from four balls, one four, bowled Saunders. Australia won by three runs and he never played for England again.

The match before the last over

Australia had won the toss and made 299, Victor Trumper 104, Bill Lockwood six for 48. England were 70 for five at the close of the first day and recovered to 262 through Stanley Jackson’s 128 and Len Braund’s 65. Tate, in his first Test, was 5 not out at the end of it.

Australia’s second innings was 86. Lockwood took five for 28 and Wilfred Rhodes three for 26, and Tate, bowling five overs, three of them maidens, took two for 7: Syd Gregory and Hugh Trumble, both leg before. He had also taken two catches in the match, Trumble in the first innings and Bert Hopkins in the second, both off Lockwood. Australia closed the second day on 85 for eight and added one run on the third morning.

The target was 124. England were 44 without loss, then 92 for four, then 109 for eight. Dick Lilley was ninth out at 116, caught Hill bowled Trumble. Trumble took six for 53; Jack Saunders, at the other end, took the rest.

Full scorecard: England v Australia, 4th Test, Old Trafford, 24–26 July 1902 →

Four balls

Tate came in with Rhodes at the other end and eight to get. He got four of them off his first ball, an edge that went for four. Three balls later Saunders bowled him. The last three lines of the fall of wickets read 109, 116 and 120, and the result line reads Australia won by 3 runs.

It is the fourth Test of five. The series line on the card says Australia led it two-nil, which with one to play meant it could not be levelled. Old Trafford decided the Ashes.

The catch that is not on the card

A card records catches taken. It does not record catches dropped, and the one Tate is remembered for is a drop. In Australia’s second innings Joe Darling, the captain, lofted a pull to deep square leg, where Archie MacLaren had just sent Tate, and Tate put it down. Darling went on to 37, the top score of the innings in a total of 86, before Lionel Palairet caught him off Rhodes at 74.

The card shows Darling’s 37 and the eventual catch. It shows the two Tate did hold. The one he did not is the reason the other lines are read at all.

Two debuts

The card lists two Test debutants, Tate and Palairet. Palairet played again. Tate did not, and his Test career is the one card: 11 overs for 44 without a wicket, then five for 7 with two; two catches; 5 not out and 4; a match lost by three runs.

One more thing the card does not say. Tate was born on 24 July 1867, and the match began on 24 July 1902. His only Test started on his thirty-fifth birthday. His son Maurice went on to play for England, which is how the surname stayed in the record after the father had left it.

What the card holds

Two for 7 in five overs, which in any other match would be the line remembered. Two catches. A four off the first ball with eight needed. Four balls faced in the innings that mattered. A margin of three. And the umpires, John Moss and Thomas Mycroft, who had a Test that ended with a number 11 bowled by the last ball he faced in international cricket.

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No. 6 in One Cap, a series of 6.

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