The Ashes Legends: Don Bradman’s Invincibles of 1948

English cricket in the year 1948 saw the arrival of a team boasting unparalleled talent, led by the greatest cricketer in history- Don Bradman. In a tour which lasted six months, Australia went unbeaten and hence the legend of the ‘Invincibles’ was born. This feat remains unique in the sense that they are the only Ashes touring team to go through the entire series undefeated.

The Invincibles played 34 matches in total, including 31 first-class matches. They went onto win 25 of those while nine were drawn. They won the Test series 4–0, with the third Test at Old Trafford drawn. This team was at its ruthless best as out of 25 wins, a staggering 15 of those wins were by an innings.

During the tour, they went on to achieve some historic feats which, down the years, became folklore among cricket fans. Feats such as orchestrating a chase of 404 runs on the final day of the fourth Test at Leeds, Headingly, when Arthur Morris and Don Bradman shared a second wicket partnership of 301 runs.

Australia only had 345 minutes to chase the target, and according to Wisden, the British press wrote them off, predicting the match to be over by lunchtime on a last day turning pitch which was favoring English spinners. This chase remained the highest total by a team in the fourth innings, until India surpassed it in 1976 when they chased down a target of 406 runs at Port of Spain against West Indies, thereby breaking a 28-year-old record.

In addition, Australia hammered 721 runs in a single day against Essex, which at the time was the highest number of runs scored in a first-class match in one day. Agreed, during those days there was no restriction on the number of overs bowled in a day as the game was dictated by the hours of play, but still this is no mean achievement. Even before the 1948 series, this team was in tremendous form; Australia had not lost a Test match since the Second World War. In the 12 lead-up matches to the Ashes, Australia won 10, of which eight were by an innings.

England, on the other hand, were confident as they were heading into the series on the back of some great performances – especially by Denis Compton and Bill Edrich – against the South Africans in the summer of 1947.

But that confidence was shattered by Bradman’s side in a performance that was so ruthless that it even compelled their most ardent critic to sit up and take notice. The team was full of character, the basis of which was formed by the deadly fast-bowling pair of the wily Ray Lindwall and the best all-rounder of his generation, Keith Miller.

On the batting front, the highly-talented Arthur Morris was so successful that he overshadowed his one-time hero in that series, scoring 696 runs at an average of 87. Meanwhile, Bradman averaged 72. Along with Morris was his temperamental but highly talented opening partner, Sid Barnes, who scored 1345 runs at an average of 56.41 in 21 matches.

Behind the stumps, the Aussies had Don Tallon, who was regarded as Australia’s finest wicket-keeper of his generation. Alert and agile, his stumpings were delicate and his glove-work second to none, rarely involving the removal of more than one bail. And then there was Neil Harvey, 19, the youngest member of a 17-man squad, 20 years junior to Bradman, left-handed batsman and an elegant stroke-maker who possessed brutal power for a man of his short height, 5’6’’.

There will be lots of performances for which he will be remembered, such as his 153 against India in his second Test, an innings which made him the youngest ever Australian to score a Test century. But it was his 112 in the Leeds Test in 1948 which made him a household name in Australia. Out of his 21 centuries, six came in his first 13 Test innings!

All these players, in their own right, would have been legends had they played in any other era. But there was a shadow looming large, of a man called Don Bradman. By 1948, Bradman, 40, was widely accepted as the greatest batsman in the game thanks to his exploits before the Second World War. Don himself admitted that he would not have toured England in ’48 had there been no war.

There came a point during the 1946-47 series when he doubted his ability to perform in Test cricket. But after his success in the series with India in 1947-48, he was convinced to embark on a journey of England in 1948. Here he was, in his last Test series, scoring 508 runs in 5 matches at an average of 72.57 with two hundreds, including a match winning innings of 173 while chasing 404 runs on a fifth day wicket at Headingly.

But perhaps the most memorable incident of the long tour was Bradman’s second-ball duck in his final Test innings, which meant he finished with a career average of 99.94, an agonizing four runs shy of an average of 100.

This Test series sowed the seeds for Australian cricket to follow in the footsteps of the Invincibles – play bold and aggressive cricket – which became the hallmark of future Australian teams.

The Invincibles touring party

Don Bradman (captain), Lindsay Hassett (vice-captain), Ray Lindwall, Keith Miller, Sam Loxton, Neil Harvey, Bill Brown, Arthur Morris, Don Tallon (wicket-keeper), Sid Barnes, Ian Johnson, Bill Johnston, Ernie Toshack, Doug Ring, Ron Hamence, Colin McCool, Ron Saggers