Midway through the 1960-61 series — and impressed by the spirit Worrell's tourists had brought to Australia after the Tied Test — Sir Donald Bradman and the Australian Cricket Board commissioned a perpetual trophy from former Test fast bowler turned silversmith Ernie McCormick. They named it the Frank Worrell Trophy. It was the first major Test trophy named for a West Indian and remains the prize for every Australia v West Indies series.
Australia and West Indies had played Test cricket since 1930-31 without a perpetual trophy. The 1960-61 series — proposed by Bradman as five Tests after concerns that two-Test series were undermining Test cricket — was conceived from the outset as a renewal of the format.
By the third Test in Sydney the press were already speculating about how the series would be commemorated. McCormick was approached during the Sydney Test and sketches were produced before Christmas.
The decision was made before the series even ended. After the Tied Test at Brisbane, with crowds returning in numbers Australian cricket had not seen for years, Bradman pushed the board to formalise the contest. McCormick — who had taken 36 wickets for Australia between 1935 and 1938 before retraining as a jeweller in Melbourne — was given the commission. He produced a silver trophy topped by a globe, designed to be presented to the winning captain at the end of every Australia v West Indies series.
The trophy was first presented at the end of the fifth Test in Melbourne, which Australia won by two wickets to take the series 2-1. Worrell, defeated, handed the trophy to Benaud. Both men were photographed laughing. Two days later, Melbourne's city authorities organised a ticker-tape parade for the West Indians as they drove from the team hotel to a civic reception at Town Hall. The estimate of half a million in attendance has been disputed since but never seriously revised; the parade was, by every contemporary account, the largest Melbourne had seen for any sporting visitor.
That the trophy was named for the losing captain has always carried weight. Worrell himself reportedly suggested it be named for Bradman; Bradman declined and insisted on Worrell.
Dec 1960: Tied Test at Brisbane revives interest in Test cricket.
Mid-Dec 1960: Bradman approves commissioning of trophy.
Jan 1961: McCormick begins work in Melbourne.
9 Feb 1961: Australia win fifth Test by two wickets to take series 2-1.
9 Feb 1961: Worrell hands trophy to Benaud at the MCG.
11 Feb 1961: Melbourne ticker-tape parade for West Indies.
Dec 1960
Tied Test; Bradman approves trophy.
Jan 1961
Ernie McCormick begins crafting the silver trophy in Melbourne.
9 Feb 1961
Trophy presented to Benaud after Australia's 2-1 series win.
11 Feb 1961
Melbourne ticker-tape parade for West Indies.
“I have not seen anything like it. The whole city came out.”
The Frank Worrell Trophy was contested in every subsequent Australia v West Indies series. West Indies held it from 1978 through to 1995 — the longest unbroken run of dominance in any bilateral Test contest. Steve Waugh's 1995 series win in the Caribbean ended that run.
Naming the trophy for Worrell was an act of unusual generosity by an Australian board that, only a year earlier, had been described in the West Indies press as institutionally cautious. The trophy stands as the most public recognition any board has paid to an opposing captain.
More than sixty years on, the trophy is still presented in McCormick's original silver. Photographs of Worrell handing it to Benaud in 1961 remain canonical in cricket histories, used to mark the moment when Test cricket reasserted itself against the threat of irrelevance.
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.