WHEN HAMMOND OVERTOOK THE DON

How the desire to usurp Bradman spurred Hammond

by Rob Johnston • Last updated on

Having watched Sir Don Bradman amass his career-best 334 from up close in the 1930 Ashes, Walter Hammond took it on him to outperform the legend © Getty

The 1930 Ashes series was a defining moment in the career of England's Walter Hammond. His side had lost the series 2-1 as Australian batsman Donald Bradman dominated proceedings with 974 runs in five matches including a world record 334 at Headingley. Having seen the class of the Australian close up and been powerless to stop him, Hammond became driven from that moment on by a fierce desire to outperform Bradman. It was a rivalry that would last nearly two decades and which Hammond, by at least one measure, would win.

Three years after that 1930 defeat, England were nearing the end of a gruelling six months. Douglas Jardine's men had left English shores in mid-September 1932 for five Tests against Australia but it was not until the end of February the following year that the Ashes - dominated by the rampant tourists - was over. It had been a controversial series which tested the players to their limits and yet rather than return home after the final match at the SCG for a well earned rest, England headed to New Zealand for what most people probably thought would be a drab two-Test tour.

In those days, it took the best part of two months to get from England to Australasia by boat and so it made sense to do whatever needed to be done while in that part of the world. The officials arranging the tour thought that since the team had gone all that way, why not also add two Tests against New Zealand? The players, however, could have been forgiven for taking it easy. The hosts were modest opposition compared to Bradman's Australia and the 4-1 Ashes victory had been a hard slog. Rather than embark on another Test series, they probably just wanted to get home to their families.

Harold Larwood, the wickedly fast bowler who had delivered Jardine's Bodyline tactics to perfection in Australia, had been bowled into the ground and missed the trip to New Zealand. With the series won, Larwood had asked to miss the final match in Sydney after struggling with an injury to his left foot but Jardine refused, so determined was he that England should keep their foot on Australian throats. As Duncan Hamilton concluded in his fine book on Larwood, that decision probably hastened the end of the fast-bowler's career. He was never able to generate the same pace or consistency afterwards.

But England's squad for the New Zealand matches was still a strong one, including batsmen Herbert Sutcliffe and Hammond, both of who had averaged over 50 during the Ashes series victory. The two matches in Christchurch and Auckland were three-day affairs, catering for the relative weakness of the opposition. At that time, England only really played Australia in four-day matches but although the Ashes series had been full of drama and controversy, the two Tests against New Zealand did its bit too. The match in Auckland saw what remains to this day the highest score by an English batsman overseas.

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It was an era of 'tall scoring' on 'perfect wickets' as John Lazenby describes in his book of the last ever timeless Test in 1939. Bradman was filling his boots and Sutcliffe and Hammond were doing the same for England, although not, of course, to the same extent as the great Australian. It was not generally a time to be a bowler although the performances of Larwood and fellow fast-bowlers Gubby Allen and Bill Voce in Australia - 69 wickets between them, with Larwood contributing 33 - redressed the balance somewhat.

Their leg-theory, a tactic devised by Jardine of bowling deliberately short and fast at a batsman's body with a packed leg-side field, was new and ultra aggressive, particularly when you consider the lack of helmets and protection the batsmen had in those times. Bodyline, as it was called, won England the Ashes but caused a near full-scale diplomatic rift between the two countries as the Australians rebelled against what they saw as dangerous and unsportsmanlike play.

What else were bowlers to do? Bradman had scored his world record triple century against England in Leeds in July 1930. In the previous Test at Lord's, he had scored 254. Runs at that time just kept flowing and flowing.

England had their own great accumulator in Hammond. He had made his debut against South Africa in 1927 but had not scored a Test hundred by the time England arrived in Australia to contest the 1928/29 Ashes. In the second Test at the SCG, he scored 251, in the third in Melbourne a round 200, and in the fourth match in Adelaide - 119 not out and 177. It was a Bradmanesque run of scores, announcing Hammond's arrival on the international scene and setting him on his way to 22 Test hundreds from 85 matches at an average of 58.45.

Hammond was the supreme stylist as a batsman, a player of grace and flamboyance which, in his younger days, sometimes led to a rash shot and his downfall too. But after Bradman's excesses in the 1930 Ashes, a switch in Hammond's psyche had been flicked. He saw how unscrupulously the Australian gathered his mountains of runs in that series and saw a vision of the type of run-getter he also wanted to become. Hammond became fixated on outperforming Bradman.

Lazenby describes how Hammond dispensed with his youthful frivolity in that quest and became more prepared to knuckle down, bide his time; he put the hook away almost entirely. Neville Cardus, the great cricket reporter, thought Hammond had 'put romance behind him'. It had worked well enough in the 1932/33 Ashes as Hammond scored more runs than Bradman, although he played a game more, but annoyingly for the 29 year-old Englishman, Bradman's 334 still remained the highest Test score.

Hammond's career-best 336 came against a weak opposition - New Zealand, but satiated his hunger to overtake Bradman's Test best. ©Getty

New Zealand's first Test match had been in 1930 when England arrived to play four Tests. Remarkably, when England took to the field in Christchurch, another England team were also playing a Test against West Indies in Barbados. In a bid to expand the game, England had agreed to send separate teams to play against New Zealand and West Indies during the same winter and although neither were England's first-choice side - Hammond stayed at home for example - the one sent to New Zealand was significantly weaker than the one which travelled to the Caribbean. Nevertheless, England won the series 1-0 and the hosts had begun their lives as a Test nation.

When England arrived in March 1933, New Zealand had improved a little but had not won a Test in nine attempts and were regarded as scarcely better than a county side. Unlike 1930, the tourists had brought a strong squad with them and selected a full strength team for the first match in Christchurch. Any thoughts of complacency were quickly washed away as England, who won the toss and batted, lost openers Sutcliffe and Eddie Paynter within the first seven balls of the match. It could have been worse had Hammond, coming in at three, been caught in the slips after edging in the first over.

From then on, however, it was England's day. Hammond shared in partnerships of 87 with Jardine and one of more than 200 in 90 minutes with wicket-keeper Les Ames, who scored a century. Wisden described "the bowling being flogged all over the field". By the close, the tourists had reached 418 for 5 with Hammond having scored 223 of them.

He had added just four more to his overnight score the next morning before being bowled and although Jardine declared on 560 for 8 and New Zealand were quickly bundled out for 223 in their first inninngs and forced to follow on, dust storms, rain and bad light brought an early end to proceedings on Day 3 and the match was drawn.

As the sides began the second Test in Auckland five days later, a defeat for England was unthinkable. The only question was whether they would have enough time over the three days, with some bad weather around, to bowl New Zealand out twice and win the game. Hammond disliked the three-day format for the very reason that it led to too many draws but given the strength of the home side, a series victory was still well within England's grasp. Quick scoring then was a necessity.

New Zealand batted after winning the toss but were bowled out for just 158 part way through the first day with England almost overtaking them by the close. Hammond had come to the crease at 56 for 1 and had reached 41 by the close. He continued from where he left off, the next morning, quickly reaching 50 and then later his century with a straight six. Hammond gave a couple of chances between his century and reaching 200 - one of which forced New Zealander Stewie Dempster to leave the field as he failed to hold on to a stinging drive - but generally tore into the home side's bowling.

As per a report in Wisden, that Hammond moved from 200 to 300 in just 47 minutes "showing the utmost advantage in driving, pulling and cutting, Hammond placed strokes with astonishing accuracy no matter how the bowlers positioned their fieldsmen". He hit three successive sixes off Jack Newman but when he passed 300, Hammond noticeably reigned himself in as he neared Bradman's 334. That determination to outdo the great Australian was evident.

When he finally passed it with a sharp single, he shouted "Yes!" and Bob Wyatt, standing in as captain for Jardine, declared at the end of the over with Hammond 336 not out. Unfortunately, poor weather again caused the match to be abandoned as a draw after the third day was washed out.

Those 336 runs had come in just 318 minutes and included 10 sixes and 34 fours, which was a record at the time and still stands as seventh on the all-time list. Although the series ended 0-0 and was pretty one-sided, Hammond had the highest ever Test score to his name and importantly for him, had usurped Bradman at the top of the tree. It remains the highest ever score by an Englishman in an overseas Test match.

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Where to rank Hammond's innings? No doubt it came against a poor team by international standards. Wisden describes New Zealand's attack as "moderate" and their fielding was certainly average; the two matches were just their tenth and eleventh official Tests so they were inexperienced too and no real match for the hardened cricketers of England. This was clearly not the same test that the Australian or South African bowling attacks of the time provided.

Even so, coming at the end of a long tour, Hammond's runs were a feat of stamina and concentration and the innings also oozed plenty of aggression and style. But it probably doesn't compare with Bradman's 334 in 1930 - the Australian certainly had to work harder for his runs on that occasion than Hammond did in New Zealand - and the Englishman's 251 in Sydney four years earlier was arguably a better innings than his 336 not out, too. Perhaps that is why Hammond's Auckland exploits are often forgotten when the pantheon of great Test match batting performances are discussed.

Five years later, England's Len Hutton passed Hammond's record against Bradman's Australia at the Oval, scoring 364 out of a mammoth 903 for 7. Hammond was captain of England then and his fixation with outdoing Bradman was still strong even if he was not at the crease himself. Lazenby describes Hutton driving just over mid-on on 140 and Hammond appearing on the players' balcony and signalling, according to the young batsman, "his orders to cool it. I wouldn't be permitted any attacking luxuries." Hammond wanted to grind Bradman into the dust at every opportunity just as Jardine had done on the 1932/33 Ashes tour.

Hammond played on for England for another 14 years after his triple hundred in New Zealand - his last Test was in 1947 - and although the second World War robbed him of five precious seasons, he still turned out for his county, Gloucestershire, sparingly until 1951. He scored more than 7,000 Test runs for England and over 50,000 in all first-class cricket including 167 centuries. For five years, he was on top of the world with Test cricket's highest ever score and Wisden called him "one of the cricketing immortals".

Irrespective of where Hammond's record innings in Auckland ranks among the best in Test history, it has stood the test of time for English batsmen overseas. His standing in the game's history, meanwhile, is undoubted. "The judgment of cricket history is that the greatest batsmen the game has known are - in order of appearance, only - WG Grace, Jack Hobbs, Walter Hammond and Don Bradman," said Wisden. "Others may come close indeed to those four but do not quite take place with them."

Ranked alongside Bradman and with a higher Test score to his name. No doubt that will have done for Walter Hammond.

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