Vinoo Mankad's first overseas tour was a masterclass of all-round cricket. On the 1947-48 tour of Australia he scored 583 Test runs at 44.84 (centuries in the third and fifth Tests at Melbourne, 116 and 111), took 17 Test wickets with his slow left-arm, ran out Bill Brown twice for backing up too far at the non-striker's end — coining the now-famous term 'Mankading' — and finished with over 1,400 first-class runs and 50 wickets across the trip.
By the second Test of the tour Bill Brown had a reputation for backing up well outside his crease. Mankad had warned him in the tour match; the second offence he punished without warning, in line with the laws of the time.
Mankad came to Australia at 30, already India's most experienced cricketer after Vijay Merchant's withdrawal. In the first first-class fixture against Western Australia he made a hundred; through November and December his form held even as the Test side foundered.
In the second tour match against an Australian XI in Sydney, Mankad ran out Bill Brown by removing the bails as he completed his delivery stride, with Brown a yard out of his crease. He repeated the dismissal in the second Test at Sydney on 13 December 1947 — the first instance of such a dismissal in a Test. Australian writers, at first critical, gradually accepted Mankad had given Brown earlier warnings; Bradman defended him publicly.
With the bat, Mankad's 116 in the third Test at Melbourne was the backbone of India's 291 first innings; his 111 in the fifth at the same ground was made out of 245. With the ball his 4/19 in the third Test was the only Indian innings analysis that genuinely troubled Bradman's batsmen.
Nov 1947 — runs out Bill Brown in tour match at Sydney (with prior warning)
13 Dec 1947 — runs Brown out again, in the second Test (no warning required by law)
1-5 Jan 1948 — Mankad 116 in the third Test at MCG
6-10 Feb 1948 — 111 in the fifth Test at MCG
Tour figures: 1,409 first-class runs at 41, 51 wickets at 35
Oct-Nov 1947
Tour begins; Mankad opens with a hundred v WA
13 Dec 1947
Runs Brown out in 2nd Test
Jan 1948
116 in 3rd Test, MCG
Feb 1948
111 in 5th Test, MCG
“The laws of cricket make it quite clear what the bowler may do; Mankad has done no more.”
Bradman's defence of Mankad — 'the laws of cricket make it quite clear what the bowler may do' — settled most Australian press hostility. Within Indian cricket Mankad's reputation as a Test-class all-rounder was confirmed; he would go on to be the first Indian to take 100 Test wickets and score 1,000 Test runs.
The performance of a complete cricketer in adverse circumstances. Mankad's run-outs of Brown gave the laws of cricket a verb ('Mankading' / 'Mankaded') that survives today; his bat and ball figures established him as the leading all-rounder in Indian Test history for the next two decades.
The verb 'to Mankad' has long outlived the man. The MCC formally amended Law 41.16 in 2017 and again in 2022 to remove the term's pejorative weight, but cricket commentary still uses Mankad's name as shorthand for the dismissal. His all-round tour figures of 1947-48 are regularly cited as the best by an Indian on a losing tour.
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.