New Zealand bowled out for 26, lowest ever score in a Test innings

On March 28, 1955 New Zealand were bowled out for an abysmal 26. Abhishek Mukherjee looks back at the lowest total ever by a side in the history of Test cricket.

New Zealand were already trailing 0-1 in the two-Test series, losing the first Test at Dunedin by 8 wickets. They went into the Auckland Test as underdogs, being bowled out for 125 and 132 at Dunedin. Despite the large crowds at the ground, the first Test was largely a dull affair that led to the capitulation of the Kiwis in the hands of the English bowling attack.

Add Cricket Country as a Preferred Source

Day One: English bowlers on top

Geoff Rabone won the toss, and New Zealand were in trouble early in the Test on a placid track when Frank Tyson removed Gordon Leggat and Matt Poore to leave them reeling at 13 for 2. After an aggressive 49 from Bert Sutcliffe and a defiant 73 from John Reid, New Zealand looked somewhat comfortable at 154 for 3.

However, Brian Statham and Bob Appleyard kept on taking wickets, and there was a collapse as New Zealand finished the day at 199 for 8. Appleyard had taken the wickets of Tony MacGibbon and Ian Colquhoun in the last two balls of the day, and was on a hat-trick.

Day Two: England fight for lead

Alex Moir averted the hat-trick, but New Zealand lost the last two wickets with the addition of a single run. A total of 200 was not a good score, but the conditions were favourable to the bowlers, and there was a chance that New Zealand would make a match out of it. Statham took 4 for 28, while Appleyard managed 3 for 38.

England lost Reg Simpson and Tom Graveney, but Peter May and Colin Cowdrey figured in a 56-run partnership. Just when things looked in control, England lost both batsmen, and New Zealand seemed to be gnawing their way back into the Test. Len Hutton and Trevor Bailey played out time as play was called off soon after tea.

Day Three: An astonishing demolition

When play resumed after the rest day, Harry Cave removed Bailey early in the day, and then Moir accounted for Godfrey Evans and Johnny Wardle in the same over. At this stage England were 174 for 7, still 26 runs behind. As Tyson walked out to bat, Hutton greeted him with the words “stick around for a while, Frank, we may not have to bat again.”

Hutton added a crucial 37 with Tyson to go past the New Zealand’s score. The English captain had scored 53 in 143 minutes in what turned out to be his last Test innings. Appleyard did not last long, but Tyson and Statham added 28 valuable runs for the final wickets, stretching the total to 246, 46 runs ahead.

The 12,000-odd spectators present at the ground had no idea what was about to hit them. New Zealand came out to bat at 3.00 pm. Disaster struck early when Tyson removed Leggat and Poore cheaply for the second time in the Test. At the other end, Reid was clean bowled by Statham for a duck just before tea.

After tea Hutton surprised everyone, replacing Tyson with the left-arm spin of Wardle, who removed Sutcliffe immediately by clean bowling him with a Chinaman. Hutton brought on Appleyard at the other end, who persisted until he had Cave caught at the leg-trap by Graveney.

More drama followed, as Appleyard trapped MacGibbon leg-before two balls later, and had Colquhoun caught by Graveney the very next ball, giving him three wickets in four balls. Moir came out again to evade the hat-trick, and got an edge — but the ball fell just short of Graveney at short-leg.

Hutton surprised everyone again by bringing back Tyson and Statham to clean up the tail. Appleyard told years later: “There can’t have been many bowlers in the game’s history who’ve been taken off after taking 4 for 7. It was the last match of a long tour in which we’d retained the Ashes in Australia and then gone on to New Zealand, and Len wanted his main bowlers to finish off the New Zealanders. So I was denied the chance to get my fifth wicket, but I didn’t mind at all because the likes of Wardle and myself were only the supporting cast to Frank and Brian. It was a really nice gesture on Len’s part to bring them back to finish the innings after the wonderful tour we’d all enjoyed.”

Statham did not take long, though: he hit Rabone on his pads in the fourth ball of his ninth over, and uprooted Johnny Hayes’ middle-stump with the last ball of the same over. New Zealand were bowled out for 26 in 144 minutes — and had plummeted to new depths by managing to achieve the lowest score in the history of Test cricket. They had scored four less than South Africa’s 30 (against England in 1895-96 and against England in 1924).

The second-innings bowling figures read: Tyson 7-2-10-2, Statham 9-3-9-3, Appleyard 6-3-7-4, and Wardle 5-5-0-1. Like his English counterpart, Rabone never played a Test again, and was replaced by Cave.

Brief Scores:

New Zealand 200 (John Reid 73, Bert Sutcliffe 49; Brian Statham 4 for 28) and 26 (Bob Appleyard 4 for 7) lost to England 246 (Len Hutton 53, Peter May 48; Alex Moir 5 for 62) by an innings and 20 runs.

(Abhishek Mukherjee is a cricket historian and Senior Cricket Writer at CricketCountry. He generally looks upon life as a journey involving two components – cricket and literature – though not as disjoint elements. A passionate follower of the history of the sport with an insatiable appetite for trivia and anecdotes, he has also a steady love affair with the incredible assortment of numbers that cricket has to offer. He also thinks he can bowl decent leg-breaks in street cricket, and blogs at http://ovshake.blogspot.in. He can be followed on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/ovshake and on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/ovshake42)