Learie Nicholas Constantine, Baron Constantine, was a Trinidadian cricketer, lawyer and politician who served as Trinidad and Tobago's High Commissioner to the United Kingdom and became the UK's first black peer. He played 18 Test matches for the West Indies before the Second World War and took the team's first wicket in Test cricket. An advocate against racial discrimination, in later life he was influential in the passing of the 1965 Race Relations Act in Britain. He was knighted in 1962 and made a life peer in 1969.
The Australian cricket team in England in 1948 is famous for being the only Test match side to play an entire tour of England without losing a match. This feat earned them the nickname of "The Invincibles", and they are regarded as one of the greatest cricket teams of all time. According to the Australian federal government, the team "is one of Australia's most cherished sporting legends". The team was captained by Don Bradman, who was making his fourth and final tour of England.
The Victory Tests were a series of cricket matches played in England from 19 May to 22 August 1945, between a combined Australian Services XI and an English national side. The first match began less than two weeks after the end of World War II in Europe, and the matches were embraced by the public of England as a way to get back to their way of life from before the war.
Ernest Raymond Herbert Toshack was an Australian cricketer who played in 12 Tests from 1946 to 1948. A left arm medium paced bowler known for his accuracy and stamina in the application of leg theory, Toshack was a member of Don Bradman's "Invincibles" that toured England in 1948 without being defeated. Toshack reinforced the Australian new ball attack of Ray Lindwall and Keith Miller.
1939 was the 46th cricket season in England since the introduction of the County Championship in 1890. It was the one and only season in which English cricket adopted the eight-ball over. 1939 was the last season before the Second World War and it was not until 1946 that first-class cricket could resume in England on a normal basis. The West Indies were on tour and England won the Test series 1–0. The West Indian team departed early, with several matches cancelled, because of the growing international crisis.
The English cricket team in Australia in 1946–47 was captained by Wally Hammond, with Norman Yardley as his vice-captain and Bill Edrich as the senior professional. It played as England in the 1946–47 Ashes series against the Australians and as the MCC in their other matches on the tour. They were regarded as a sound team which was just as strong as Australia, but due to the Second World War they were an ageing side and their bowling depended heavily on Alec Bedser and Doug Wright, who were overused and exhausted as a result. Australia beat England 3-0 in a five-match series to retain the Ashes; England suffered the worst defeat in a Test series since losing 4–1 to Australia in 1924–25. Since 1881, Tests in Australia were played to finish. That rule was changed for this series, and for the first time in 65 years, a test played in Australia ended in a draw when the third test was drawn.
1947 was the 48th season of County Championship cricket in England. It is chiefly remembered for the batting performances of Denis Compton and Bill Edrich who established seasonal records that, with the subsequent reduction in the number of first-class matches, will probably never be broken. Their form was key to their team Middlesex winning the County Championship for the first time since 1921, although they were involved in a tight contest for the title with the eventual runners-up Gloucestershire, for whom Tom Goddard was the most outstanding bowler of the season. Compton and Edrich were assisted by the fact that it was the driest and sunniest English summer for a generation, ensuring plenty of good batting wickets.
The Indian national cricket team toured England in the 1946 season and played 29 first-class fixtures with 11 wins, 4 defeats and 14 draws. The 1946 season marked a return to normal first-class cricket in England following the end of World War II. The Test series between England and India was the first to be played in England since the West Indies tour in 1939. England won the series 1–0 with two matches drawn, their success largely due to the impact of debutant Alec Bedser who took 22 wickets in his first two Tests.
The Indian cricket team toured England in the 1974 English domestic cricket season. After matches against many of county cricket and other minor teams, in April and May, the Indian team played three Test matches and two One-day Internationals against the England cricket team. The tour was a total disaster for the Indian cricket team with England winning all five of the matches.
The New Zealand cricket team toured England in the 1937 season. The team was the third from New Zealand to tour England, following those of 1927 and 1931, and the second to play Test matches. Three Tests were arranged: England won the second match at Manchester, and the games at Lord's and The Oval were drawn, the latter affected by rain. On the tour as a whole, the New Zealanders played 32 first-class matches, winning nine and losing nine, with 14 ending as draws.
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. The four-match Test series with England was shared, every game ending as a draw, and of 35 first-class fixtures, 14 were won, 20 drawn and only one lost.
The West Indian cricket team that toured England in the 1928 season was the first to play Test cricket. The team was not very successful, losing all three Tests by an innings and winning only five of the 30 first-class matches played.
The English cricket team in the West Indies in 1934–35 was a cricket touring party sent to the West Indies under the auspices of the Marylebone Cricket Club for a tour lasting 2+1⁄2 months in 1934–35. The team played four Test matches against the West Indian cricket team, winning one match but losing two – the first series defeat of an English side by the West Indies.
The West Indies cricket team toured England in 1933, playing three Test matches, losing two of them and drawing the other. In all, the side played 30 first-class matches, winning only five and losing nine.
The Australian Services XI was a cricket team comprising solely military service personnel during World War II. They became active in May 1945 after the defeat of Nazi Germany. The team played matches against English cricket sides of both military and civilian origins to celebrate the end of the war. These matches were aimed at increasing morale in the war-ravaged English cities and as a means of reviving cricket after the conclusion of fighting.
The West Indies cricket team toured England in the 1939 season to play a three-match Test series against England. England won the series 1–0 with two matches drawn. A total of 25 first-class matches were played and the West Indian side won eight of them and lost six, with the others drawn. The tour was abandoned a few days after the final test match because of the worsening international situation with the Second World War imminent. The last six matches from 26 August to 12 September were cancelled.
With the end of the Second World War's European theatre in early May, it was possible to organise eleven first-class cricket matches, the first to be played in England since 1939, though none were part of any official competition.
The Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) toured Australia during the 1970–71 cricket season, playing seven Test matches and what would become officially recognized as the first-ever One Day International (ODI). This was the MCC's 15th visit to Australia since it took official control of English cricket tours overseas in 1903–1904. The MCC was captained by Ray Illingworth, while Australia was captained by Bill Lawry until he was sacked and replaced by Ian Chappell for the seventh Test.
The 1946–47 Ashes series consisted of five cricket Test matches, each of six days with five hours play each day and eight ball overs. Unlike pre-war Tests in Australia, matches were not timeless and played to a finish. It formed part of the MCC tour of Australia in 1946–47 and England played its matches outside the Tests in the name of the Marylebone Cricket Club. The England team was led by the veteran Wally Hammond and his vice-captain Norman Yardley with the strong batting line up of Len Hutton, Cyril Washbrook, Bill Edrich, Denis Compton and Joe Hardstaff, but a weak bowling attack that relied on pre-war bowlers like the 37-year-old Bill Voce of Bodyline fame and the mercurial leg-spinner Doug Wright. The two successes of the tour were the newly capped Alec Bedser, who would carry the England bowling attack until 1955, and Godfrey Evans who would be England's first choice wicketkeeper until 1959. England had drawn the Victory Tests 2–2 in 1945 and were thought to be equal in strength, but Hammond lost 3–0 to Don Bradman's Australian team which had only two other pre-war players – Lindsay Hassett and Sid Barnes, who had played 5 Tests between them – and was packed with fresh talent in the shape of Arthur Morris, Keith Miller, Ray Lindwall, Colin McCool, Ernie Toshack and Don Tallon. There were several controversial umpiring decisions which assumed greater significance as they favoured Australia and in particular Don Bradman.
The Marylebone Cricket Club tour of Australia in 1946-47 under the captaincy of Wally Hammond was its ninth since it took official control of overseas tours in 1903-1904 and the first since the Second World War. The touring team played as England in the 1946–47 Ashes series against Australia, but as the MCC in all other games. In all there were 25 matches; 5 Test matches, 13 other First Class matches and 7 minor matches. Australia had been suffering a drought since 1937, but this ended as it rained in every match the MCC played on tour, including tropical thunderstorms twice in Brisbane and again in Sydney. However, this had an adverse effect on the pitches and denied the touring team adequate practice and lead to many draws.
Hammond's ill-equipped army returned to England beaten, yet deserving of the highest honours for their sportsmanship, their ability to smile in the face of certain disaster and also for their success in gaining the objective of their invasion - the spreading of cricket goodwill from the Homeland to a Dominion.
