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The Victory Tests - England V Australia 1945 (Hardcover)
Loot Price: R456
Discovery Miles 4 560
You Save: R96
(17%)
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The Victory Tests - England V Australia 1945 (Hardcover)
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List price R552
Loot Price R456
Discovery Miles 4 560
You Save R96 (17%)
Supplier out of stock. If you add this item to your wish list we will let you know when it becomes available.
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One minute before 7pm on Tuesday, May 22, 1945 a packed Lord's
roared as Australia beat England in the last over of the first
Victory Test. A fortnight after Victory in Europe, the result did
not matter - only the cricket. The five matches between a near
full-strength England and Australian servicemen, at least one of
whom had just been released from a PoW camp, drew huge crowds.
Great cricketers played on both sides: Len Hutton, Wally Hammond,
Keith Miller, Lindsay Hassett. Everyone hailed the spirit of
sportsmanship. Even the result - a 2-2 draw - was satisfying. Yet
this story is forgotten today. The only history of the series is a
limited-edition Australian book on the subject. The story has
characters - besides the stars, men such as the Australian
Dambusters Squadron pilot Ross Stanford; the quiet un-Australian
Australian spin bowler Reg Ellis; and the English teenagers Donald
Carr and John Dewes, who were on the wrong end of Keith Miller
discovering that he was the fastest bowler in the world. By using
the available sources to the full - newspapers of the time,
memoirs, deposited records in England and Australia, recollections
of surviving players The Victory Tests details what made the
dressing rooms tick - in England's case, the class system of
amateurs and professionals; and the tensions inside the Australian
team too. Two controversies not aired before but covered in The
Victory Tests are the war records of the charismatic Keith Miller -
not the war hero his admirers have assumed; and of Sir Donald
Bradman, absent in 1945 - and accused of being a war-dodger.
Besides the see-sawing games - the largely unknown Australians
playing beyond themselves - it's a story of players and sports
lovers alike emerging joyously after years of war. Cricket mirrored
wider society - people hoped for brighter cricket, just as they
hoped for a better post-war world. Their hopes, inevitably, were
disappointed. The Australians, wearied by a colourful tour of
India, did poorly in matches on their return home and largely
returned to obscurity. Even the bomber men's war efforts were later
derided. And yet while the Victory Tests were not officially for
the Ashes, they offer a refreshing change from the commercial and
cynical cricket of the 21st century. The 1945 series brought
sporting competition with goodwill - something more than the Ashes.
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