When Bill Lockwood was bowled at 248 for 9 in England's chase of 263 at The Oval on 13 August 1902, Wilfred Rhodes joined his Yorkshire team-mate George Hirst with 15 runs still required against Trumble, Saunders and Noble. The two professionals from Kirkheaton edged, deflected and sometimes simply blocked their way to a one-wicket win — the foundation of perhaps cricket's most famous (and most disputed) quotation, 'we'll get them in singles'.
Hirst and Rhodes were already Yorkshire's senior all-rounders. Hirst, six years older, had been first-choice for England since 1897; Rhodes, a left-arm spinner who would later open the batting in Tests, was on the cusp of greatness. The 1902 Ashes had been bitterly disappointing for England — Old Trafford lost by three runs, the Edgbaston Test ruined by rain — and the Oval was the last chance for any sort of vindication.
The pitch had crumbled by day three. Trumble's match figures of 12 for 173 testify to its difficulty for batsmen.
Jessop's hundred had bought England a sniff. Hirst, batting at seven, had seen Jessop come and go, and had taken the responsibility on himself. When Lockwood was bowled, the equation was simple: 15 to win, two wickets in hand if you counted Rhodes' obstinacy, a Surrey crowd on the edge of its seats.
Gilbert Jessop's 104 in 75 minutes had transformed England's chase from hopeless to merely improbable, but his dismissal at 187 for 7 left a long way to go. Bill Lockwood and George Hirst added a chancy 27 before Lockwood was bowled by Saunders at 248 for 9. Wilfred Rhodes, then 24 and on his ninth Test, walked from the pavilion to join Hirst, the pair born within yards of each other in the Yorkshire village of Kirkheaton.
What followed was a stand of 15 unbeaten runs that took close to 25 minutes. Trumble and Saunders bowled almost every ball; Joe Darling crowded the bat. Hirst nudged singles to leg; Rhodes pushed into the off side. Twice Hirst played an attacking stroke and was nearly caught — once at mid-off, once at deep mid-on — but neither chance went to hand. The winning run, scored by Hirst off Saunders, was greeted by a Surrey crowd which spilled across the field and carried the players up the steps of the pavilion.
The famous 'we'll get them in singles' line was first published years after the match, attributed by various journalists to Hirst greeting Rhodes at the wicket. Both men, when asked, denied it. Rhodes told Neville Cardus bluntly: 'We never said anything of the kind.' Hirst's recollection was kinder but also clear: 'I don't recollect ever saying it.' The phrase nevertheless entered the language as cricket's archetypal expression of Yorkshire understatement.
Lockwood bowled by Saunders at 248/9; Rhodes joins Hirst.
Hirst nudges Trumble to leg for the first single.
Rhodes pushes Saunders into the covers — single, then a swept boundary.
Hirst nearly caught at mid-off off Trumble — chance dropped.
Score creeps to 258, then 261.
Hirst clips Saunders for the winning two through midwicket.
Crowd invades; players carried to the pavilion.
Reporters file copy that will, within a decade, include the famous quote.
13 Aug 1902, mid-afternoon
England 187/7 after Jessop's dismissal.
Late afternoon
Lockwood out at 248/9.
Soon after
Rhodes joins Hirst, 15 needed.
Over by over
Hirst and Rhodes accumulate in singles.
Twice
Hirst nearly caught off Trumble.
Final ball of Saunders' over
Hirst clips for two; England win by one wicket.
Immediately after
Crowd invades The Oval.
“We never said anything of the kind.”
“I don't recollect ever saying it.”
England had won the dead-rubber Test, and the Oval crowd treated it as an Ashes win. Hirst and Rhodes were feted in Yorkshire for weeks; the Huddersfield Examiner ran portraits of both men. Australia's Joe Darling was sporting in defeat, congratulating both Hirst and Rhodes personally as they came off.
Neither man ever traded on the moment. Hirst's testimonial book recorded the match in two paragraphs; Rhodes' biographer Sidney Rogerson noted that the bowler-turned-batsman 'spoke of it with something close to embarrassment'. The 'singles' quote first appeared in print, by most reckonings, in the 1920s — long after the match.
An innings (or pair of innings) less brilliant than Jessop's 104 but in some ways more remarkable: two professionals, both Yorkshiremen, both from the same village, knocking off 15 runs against a great Australian attack with the last pair at the crease. The legend of 'we'll get them in singles' grew faster than either man could deny it.
The stand became the touchstone for last-wicket Test heroics. When England's last pair held out at Adelaide in 1928-29, when Joe Hardstaff and Bill Voce added runs at Brisbane in 1936-37, when Rhodes and Hirst were both still alive, the comparisons were immediate. The 'we'll get them in singles' line, despite both men's denials, has been printed in cricket anthologies for over a century.
Hirst and Rhodes would later add another chapter together: at Melbourne in 1903-04 and at Sydney in 1911-12, they continued to play Test cricket together, Rhodes eventually setting the records (oldest Test player at 52, longest Test career at 31 years) that even Hirst could not match.
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.