New Zealand cricket team in England in 1958
Encyclopedia
The New Zealand cricket team toured England in the 1958 season
. In a notably wet summer when the touring side lost the equivalent of 29 full days of cricket, the side lost four of the five Test matches
(and would probably have lost the other had rain not ruined the match). In first-class matches, they won six of their first nine games, but then won only one more all season, although they only lost two matches outside the Tests, both of them to Surrey
.
had successively beaten Australia
and the West Indies
, and a combination of fast bowling from Brian Statham
, Fred Trueman
and others, spin bowling from Jim Laker
and Tony Lock
, and apparently reliable batting led by captain Peter May, Colin Cowdrey
and Tom Graveney
had made them a formidable side.
By contrast, New Zealand had undoubted batting class in Bert Sutcliffe
, a determined captain in all-rounder John Reid
, and some relatively unknown and untried players alongside a few reliable stalwarts who had played across the 1950s. The preceding years had seen New Zealand finally achieve its first-ever Test victory, and previous New Zealand sides in England had often raised their game in the big matches (though even Tests in the previous tours had been restricted to just three days).
who, with Bert Sutcliffe
, Harry Cave
and John Hayes
, were the four players who remained from the successful 1949 New Zealand team
. Jack Phillipps was also returning for a second visit to England as tour manager.
The full side was:
Of the 16 players, 11 had previously played Test cricket: the five newcomers were D'Arcy, Meale, Playle, Sparling and Ward, and of these five, all except Ward played during this tour.
The New Zealand top order was notoriously poor, the opening four concluding their careers with an average of 52 between them. In the Test Match at Lord's
, despite scoring only 269 in the first innings, England won by an innings and 148 runs.
1958 English cricket season
The 1958 English cricket season saw Surrey captain Peter May top the batting averages for the third time and his team win the County Championship for a record seventh successive title.-Honours:*County Championship – Surrey...
. In a notably wet summer when the touring side lost the equivalent of 29 full days of cricket, the side lost four of the five Test matches
Test cricket
Test cricket is the longest form of the sport of cricket. Test matches are played between national representative teams with "Test status", as determined by the International Cricket Council , with four innings played between two teams of 11 players over a period of up to a maximum five days...
(and would probably have lost the other had rain not ruined the match). In first-class matches, they won six of their first nine games, but then won only one more all season, although they only lost two matches outside the Tests, both of them to Surrey
Surrey County Cricket Club
Surrey County Cricket Club is one of the 18 professional county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Surrey. Its limited overs team is called the Surrey Lions...
.
The background
New Zealand's first tour of England for nine years saw what was probably the weakest of the Test-playing nations taking on the side that could probably claim to be the strongest. In home series EnglandEnglish cricket team
The England and Wales cricket team is a cricket team which represents England and Wales. Until 1992 it also represented Scotland. Since 1 January 1997 it has been governed by the England and Wales Cricket Board , having been previously governed by Marylebone Cricket Club from 1903 until the end...
had successively beaten Australia
Australian cricket team
The Australian cricket team is the national cricket team of Australia. It is the joint oldest team in Test cricket, having played in the first Test match in 1877...
and the West Indies
West Indian cricket team
The West Indian cricket team, also known colloquially as the West Indies or the Windies, is a multi-national cricket team representing a sporting confederation of 15 mainly English-speaking Caribbean countries, British dependencies and non-British dependencies.From the mid 1970s to the early 1990s,...
, and a combination of fast bowling from Brian Statham
Brian Statham
John Brian "George" Statham, CBE was one of the leading English fast bowlers in 20th-century English cricket. Initially a bowler of a brisk fast-medium pace, Statham was able to remodel his action to generate enough speed to become genuinely fast...
, Fred Trueman
Fred Trueman
Frederick Sewards Trueman OBE was an English cricketer, generally acknowledged as one of the greatest fast bowlers in history. A bowler of genuinely fast pace who was widely known as Fiery Fred, Trueman played first-class cricket for Yorkshire County Cricket Club from 1949 until he retired in 1968...
and others, spin bowling from Jim Laker
Jim Laker
James "Jim" Charles Laker was a cricketer who played for England in the 1950s, known for "Laker's match" in 1956 at Old Trafford, when he took nineteen wickets in England's victory against Australia...
and Tony Lock
Tony Lock
Graham Anthony Richard Lock was an English cricketer, who played primarily as a left-arm spinner. He played in forty nine Tests for England taking 174 wickets at 25.58 each.-Life and career:...
, and apparently reliable batting led by captain Peter May, Colin Cowdrey
Colin Cowdrey
Michael Colin Cowdrey, Baron Cowdrey of Tonbridge, CBE , better known as Colin Cowdrey, was the Captain of Oxford University, Kent County Cricket Club and the England cricket team in a career that lasted from 1950 to 1976...
and Tom Graveney
Tom Graveney
Thomas William Graveney in Riding Mill, Northumberland, is a former English cricketer and was the President of the Marylebone Cricket Club for 2004/5. He went to Bristol Grammar School...
had made them a formidable side.
By contrast, New Zealand had undoubted batting class in Bert Sutcliffe
Bert Sutcliffe
Bert Sutcliffe MBE was a New Zealand Test cricketer. Sutcliffe was a successful left-hand batsman. His batting achievements on tour in England in 1949, which included four fifties and a century in the Tests, earned him the accolade of being one of Wisden's Five Cricketers of the Year...
, a determined captain in all-rounder John Reid
John Richard Reid
John Richard Reid was a New Zealand cricketer who captained New Zealand in 34 Tests. He was the country's first cricketing leader to achieve victory, both at home against the West Indies in 1956 and the first away win, against South Africa in 1962...
, and some relatively unknown and untried players alongside a few reliable stalwarts who had played across the 1950s. The preceding years had seen New Zealand finally achieve its first-ever Test victory, and previous New Zealand sides in England had often raised their game in the big matches (though even Tests in the previous tours had been restricted to just three days).
The New Zealand touring team
The side was captained by John ReidJohn Richard Reid
John Richard Reid was a New Zealand cricketer who captained New Zealand in 34 Tests. He was the country's first cricketing leader to achieve victory, both at home against the West Indies in 1956 and the first away win, against South Africa in 1962...
who, with Bert Sutcliffe
Bert Sutcliffe
Bert Sutcliffe MBE was a New Zealand Test cricketer. Sutcliffe was a successful left-hand batsman. His batting achievements on tour in England in 1949, which included four fifties and a century in the Tests, earned him the accolade of being one of Wisden's Five Cricketers of the Year...
, Harry Cave
Harry Cave
Henry "Harry" Butler Cave was a New Zealand cricketer who captained New Zealand in nine of his nineteen Tests....
and John Hayes
John Hayes (cricketer)
John Arthur "Johnny" Hayes was a cricketer who played 15 Tests for New Zealand. Primarily a fast bowler bowling late away-swingers with a high action, he took 30 wickets in Tests. Perhaps his finest moment was taking 11 wickets for the New Zealanders against MCC at Lord's in 1958.Hayes was born...
, were the four players who remained from the successful 1949 New Zealand team
New Zealand cricket team in England in 1949
The New Zealand cricket team toured England in the 1949 season. The team was the fourth official touring side from New Zealand, following those in 1927, 1931 and 1937, and was by some distance the most successful to this date...
. Jack Phillipps was also returning for a second visit to England as tour manager.
The full side was:
- John ReidJohn Richard ReidJohn Richard Reid was a New Zealand cricketer who captained New Zealand in 34 Tests. He was the country's first cricketing leader to achieve victory, both at home against the West Indies in 1956 and the first away win, against South Africa in 1962...
(captain) - Bert SutcliffeBert SutcliffeBert Sutcliffe MBE was a New Zealand Test cricketer. Sutcliffe was a successful left-hand batsman. His batting achievements on tour in England in 1949, which included four fifties and a century in the Tests, earned him the accolade of being one of Wisden's Five Cricketers of the Year...
(vice-captain) - Jack AlabasterJack AlabasterJohn Chaloner "Jack" Alabaster in Invercargill. He played 21 Tests for New Zealand from 1955-72. A spin bowler, he was often partnered at the crease for his provincial side Otago by his brother Gren....
- Bob BlairBob Blair (cricketer)Robert William Blair is a former cricketer who played 19 Tests for New Zealand.In December 1953 Blair, playing for New Zealand against South Africa at Johannesburg, received news that his fiancée, Nerissa Love, had been killed in the Tangiwai railway disaster on Christmas Eve...
- Harry CaveHarry CaveHenry "Harry" Butler Cave was a New Zealand cricketer who captained New Zealand in nine of his nineteen Tests....
- John D'ArcyJohn D'ArcyJohn William D'Arcy played five Tests for New Zealand on their tour of England in 1958....
- Noel HarfordNoel HarfordNoel Sherwin Harford, born 30 August 1930 in Winton and died at Auckland on 30 March 1981, was a cricketer who played for Central Districts, Auckland and New Zealand....
- John HayesJohn Hayes (cricketer)John Arthur "Johnny" Hayes was a cricketer who played 15 Tests for New Zealand. Primarily a fast bowler bowling late away-swingers with a high action, he took 30 wickets in Tests. Perhaps his finest moment was taking 11 wickets for the New Zealanders against MCC at Lord's in 1958.Hayes was born...
- Tony MacGibbonTony MacGibbonAnthony Roy MacGibbon, was a cricketer who played 26 Tests for New Zealand.MacGibbon was a useful lower-order right-hand batsman and a right-arm fast-medium bowler who led the attack for his country for most of the 1950s...
- Trevor MealeTrevor MealeTrevor Meale was a New Zealand cricketer who played in two Tests in 1958. Meale was born in Papatoetoe, Auckland and died in Orewa, Auckland....
- Lawrie MillerLawrie MillerLawrence Somerville Martin Miller was a cricketer who played for Central Districts, Wellington and New Zealand....
- Alex MoirAlex MoirAlexander McKenzie Moir played 17 Tests for New Zealand in the 1950s.He is one of only two bowlers to have bowled consecutive overs in a Test innings; this occurred on 28 March 1951, the fourth day of the Wellington Test, on either side of the tea interval...
- Eric PetrieEric PetrieEric Charlton Petrie was a New Zealand cricketer who played 14 Tests for New Zealand from 1955 to 1966 as a wicket-keeper....
(wicketkeeper) - Bill PlayleBill PlayleWilliam Rodger Playle is a former New Zealand cricketer who played eight Tests for New Zealand, making 151 runs in eight Tests as a specialist batsman. All his Tests were against England, and he only passed 25 once - scoring 65 in a lost cause at Wellington in 1962–63...
- John SparlingJohn SparlingJohn Trevor Sparling is a former New Zealand cricketer who played in 11 Tests from 1958 to 1964.A stocky, fair-haired, off-spinning all-rounder, Sparling was coached in Auckland by Jim Laker and broke into the Auckland team at the age of 18...
- John WardJohn Ward (cricketer)John Thomas Ward is a former New Zealand cricketer who played in 8 Tests from 1964 to 1968. He was born in Timaru, Canterbury....
(wicketkeeper)
Of the 16 players, 11 had previously played Test cricket: the five newcomers were D'Arcy, Meale, Playle, Sparling and Ward, and of these five, all except Ward played during this tour.
The New Zealand top order was notoriously poor, the opening four concluding their careers with an average of 52 between them. In the Test Match at Lord's
Lord's Cricket Ground
Lord's Cricket Ground is a cricket venue in St John's Wood, London. Named after its founder, Thomas Lord, it is owned by Marylebone Cricket Club and is the home of Middlesex County Cricket Club, the England and Wales Cricket Board , the European Cricket Council and, until August 2005, the...
, despite scoring only 269 in the first innings, England won by an innings and 148 runs.
Test series summary
- 1st Test at EdgbastonEdgbaston Cricket GroundEdgbaston Cricket Ground, also known as the County Ground or Edgbaston Stadium, is a cricket ground in the Edgbaston area of Birmingham, England...
– England won by 205 runs - 2nd Test at Lord'sLord's Cricket GroundLord's Cricket Ground is a cricket venue in St John's Wood, London. Named after its founder, Thomas Lord, it is owned by Marylebone Cricket Club and is the home of Middlesex County Cricket Club, the England and Wales Cricket Board , the European Cricket Council and, until August 2005, the...
– England won by an innings and 148 runs - 3rd Test at HeadingleyHeadingley StadiumHeadingley Stadium is a sporting complex in the Leeds suburb of Headingley in West Yorkshire, England. It is the home of Yorkshire County Cricket Club, rugby league team Leeds Rhinos and rugby union team Leeds Carnegie ....
– England won by an innings and 71 runs - 4th Test at Old Trafford – England won by an innings and 13 runs
- 5th Test at The OvalThe OvalThe Kia Oval, still commonly referred to by its original name of The Oval, is an international cricket ground in Kennington, in the London Borough of Lambeth. In the past it was also sometimes called the Kennington Oval...
– match drawn