On 1-3 January 1898, the 20-year-old Adelaide left-hander Clem Hill came in at 6 for 58 and made 188 — his maiden Test century, and still the highest Ashes Test score by a player under 21. Australia recovered to 520 and won by an innings. The innings established Hill as the central figure of Australian batting between Trumper and Bradman; he would average 39 across 49 Tests until 1912.
Hill had been a Prince Alfred College schoolboy prodigy; he made 360 in a school match aged 16. He played his first Sheffield Shield innings for South Australia in 1894-95 aged 17. The 1897-98 series was his first full Test run; he had failed in the First Test at Sydney with scores of 96 and 0.
Hill had played his first Test against the same England side in the previous Sydney match aged 19, making 96 and 0. The Second Test at Melbourne was the moment the cricket world had been waiting for. England, captained by MacLaren in Stoddart's absence, won the toss and made 315. Australia replied; the early innings collapsed against Tom Richardson and Johnny Briggs to 6 for 58.
Hill, batting at six, joined his older state colleague Hugh Trumble. Together they added 165, of which Trumble made 46 and Hill 119 by stumps. The next day Hill went on, careful in the morning and free after lunch, and was eventually out for 188 in 285 minutes. Australia 520. England, set 405 in the third innings of an effective timeless Test, were dismissed for 150. Australia won by an innings and 55.
The 188 was the fastest Test 100 by a player under 21 (Hill turned 21 in March 1898) and remained the highest Ashes Test score by an under-21 — a record never beaten. Hill went on to score 829 runs at 75.36 in the 12 first-class innings of the tour, and was Wisden Cricketer of the Year for 1899.
Australia 6/58 against Richardson and Briggs.
Hill joins Trumble; 165-run partnership.
Hill 119 not out at close of day one.
Day two: Hill out 188 in 285 min.
Australia 520; lead by 205.
England 150 second innings; Australia win by an innings and 55.
Hill becomes youngest Test 150-plus scorer, an Ashes record never broken.
1 Jan 1898
England 315; Australia 6/58.
1 Jan, evening
Hill 119* with Trumble at close.
2 Jan
Hill out 188; Australia 520.
3 Jan
England 150; Australia win by an innings and 55.
“He defended every ball as though it might be the deciding one of his life.”
Hill scored 829 runs at 75.36 across the tour and a further 96, 58 and 188 in the remaining Tests. He played another 41 Tests through to 1912. His career — 49 Tests, 3,412 runs at 39.21, 7 hundreds — made him the central left-handed Australian batsman before Neil Harvey. He died in 1945 in Melbourne aged 68.
The innings that announced Australian batting's turn-of-the-century strength. Hill's 188 at 20 made him the youngest player to make a Test 150-plus, a benchmark not beaten in Ashes Tests since.
Hill's 188 is the headline left-handed innings of pre-Bradman Australian cricket. The under-21 Ashes record has never been beaten in 127 years; Tendulkar (114, Perth 1991) was 18, Wasim Akram and Imran were younger but in different opposition; nobody else has touched 150 in an Ashes Test before turning 21. Hill's bat from the innings sits in the Adelaide Oval museum.
Yorkshire v Essex
1932-06-16
On 15-16 June 1932 Herbert Sutcliffe (313) and Percy Holmes (224*) put on 555 for the first wicket against Essex at Leyton, breaking the world first-class record for any wicket and adding a layer of folklore — including a scoreboard that read 554 for several minutes and a hastily reversed declaration — that has clung to the partnership ever since.
Australia v England
1933-02-14
With the fate of the Bodyline series in the balance and England 216 for 6 chasing 340, Eddie Paynter checked himself out of a Brisbane hospital where he was being treated for acute tonsillitis, taxied to the Gabba in pyjamas and a dressing gown, and batted for nearly four hours to score 83. England drew level on first innings, won the Test by six wickets and the series 4-1.
Australia
1934-09-25
Days after the 1934 Oval Test, Bradman fell seriously ill with appendicitis that progressed to peritonitis. With antibiotics not yet available, he was given little chance of survival; his wife Jessie left Adelaide on a sea voyage to England prepared for the worst. He recovered after weeks of intensive nursing in a London nursing home and returned to first-class cricket the following Australian summer.