A Test in time

Fifty years ago this week, Australia and the West Indies played out a historic match at the Gabba. Tim Lane revisits that dramatic final day's play, the re-recorded ABC commentary and an amazing photograph.

HISTORY seems to be repeating. The 1958-59 Ashes series began with a match at the Gabba that caused concern for the future of Test cricket, and was followed by a match in which England won the toss and crashed to 3-7 on the opening morning. It's to be hoped the comparisons end there, for by the end of that drearily played series, Test cricket was seen to be in dire need of resuscitation.

To make matters worse, there wasn't an opportunity for the game to show its better side for nearly two years. The following summer, with Richie Benaud's team on an out-of-sight-out-of-mind tour of India and Pakistan, Sheffield Shield was all the cricket public had. Between February 1959 and early-December 1960, Australian cricket fans would not see a Test match.

When those 22 months had passed, Australia's opponent would be the unpredictable West Indies. As was the nature of the international cycle in those times, it had been nine years since a team from the Caribbean had visited. No one expected too much. The magnetic Frank Worrell led a group possessed of some exciting individuals, but which wasn't expected to worry Benaud's formidable outfit.

In 1951-52, the bamboozling spin bowling of Sonny Ramadhin and Alf Valentine, coupled with the batting brilliance of the fabled "Three Ws" - Everton Weekes, Clyde Walcott, and Worrell - had made the Windies competitive.

Fifty years ago this Thursday, the first Test of that series began in Brisbane at a ground very different from today's Gabba. And the cricket was different from anything in the spectators' recent memories. In the equivalent match of the 1958-59 series, not one day of play had yielded 150 runs; now the underdog West Indies galloped to 7-359 by the first drawing of stumps. Sobers had thrashed a majestic 132 inside three hours.

Long before the expression was in vogue, it was game on. The next morning the tourists' tail wagged. Hall made a crowd-pleasing 50, partnered by vice-captain Gerry Alexander, a wicketkeeper who would score almost 500 runs for the series. The Windies eventually made 453. Australia's reply lost little by run-rate comparison and was highlighted by Norm O'Neill's 181.