Seven balls at the Gabba

Australia needed 233 to win the first Test of the 1960-61 series at Brisbane, and at 92 for six on the last afternoon they were not going to get them. Alan Davidson and Richie Benaud then added 134 for the seventh wicket, a record for Australia against West Indies, and by the last over they needed six.

The over was eight balls long. Wes Hall bowled it. Three wickets were standing when it began and none were standing when it ended, and the scores were level.

How they got there

West Indies had made 453, Garry Sobers 132 of it, and Australia had replied with 505, Norm O’Neill making 181. Davidson took five for 135 in the first innings and six for 87 in the second, when West Indies made 284. He also made 44 and 80, and became the first man to score a hundred runs and take ten wickets in the same Test.

The chase went wrong early. Bob Simpson went at 1, Neil Harvey at 7, O’Neill and Colin McDonald at 49, Les Favell at 57 and Ken Mackay at 92. Hall had four of them. Then Davidson and Benaud batted for the rest of the afternoon.

Davidson was run out for 80 with the score on 226. That left seven to win, three wickets, and Hall to bowl the last eight balls.

The over

The card carries the wickets and the score. The sequence within the over comes from the accounts of it, which agree with one another and with the card.

The first ball hit Wally Grout on the thigh and Benaud called him through for a single. Five needed. The second had Benaud caught behind by Gerry Alexander for 52: 228 for eight. Ian Meckiff came in and played the third to mid-off for nothing. The fourth went down the leg side for a bye, and Meckiff survived a throw at the stumps. The fifth Grout fended to square leg, and a misfield gave them a single.

Two needed from three balls. Meckiff hit the sixth towards the midwicket boundary and they ran two, which levelled the scores, and turned for the third. Grout was run out. 232 for nine.

Lindsay Kline came in with one to win from two balls. He pushed the seventh to square leg and Meckiff ran. Joe Solomon picked up and threw down the stumps side-on, and Meckiff was run out. 232 for ten. The eighth ball was never bowled.

Full scorecard: Australia v West Indies, 1st Test, Brisbane, 9–14 December 1960 →

What the card says

It says Match tied, which no Test scorecard had said before. It gives Australia 232 all out and West Indies 453 and 284, which add to 737 and to 737. It records two men run out at 232, one after the other, and Hall’s figures as 17.7 overs, three maidens, 63 runs, five wickets.

The seven in that 17.7 is the count of balls in an unfinished eight-ball over. It is the only place on the card where the length of the last over is visible.

Kline’s line reads nought not out from one ball. He faced the delivery the match ended on and was never dismissed. The man who was dismissed was at the other end.

The two run-outs

Both wickets at 232 fell to throws rather than to the bowler, and neither batter was the man who played the shot. Grout was run out off Meckiff’s stroke, going for the winning run. Meckiff was run out off Kline’s. Hall bowled the ball each time and took the wicket neither time.

That is the shape of a tie on a card. Nobody won the last over. It was thrown away twice, from opposite ends, by men trying to finish it.

What is there and what is not

Everything that decided the match is on the card: the 134 that made the chase, the wicket at 226 that left the tail to do it, the two run-outs at 232. What is not there is any way of telling from the columns that the last over lasted seven balls, or that the winning run was attempted twice.

The card’s series line after this match reads level, nought all. A tie counted for neither side. It is a result the record has a word for and no shape for, and the first one took 737 runs a side and a throw from square leg to produce.

••••••

No. 6 in The Over That Turned It, a series of 9.

NextOne not out, from seventeen balls