A fortnight after losing the first Test, Lillywhite's England side won the rematch on the same Melbourne pitch by 4 wickets. Alfred Shaw took 5/40 and 4/41, George Ulyett scored 52 in the second innings, and the unofficial 1877 series was tied 1-1.
Lillywhite's side, smarting from the Melbourne loss, played a series of upcountry games in Victoria before returning to the MCG. Australia kept the same XI minus Frank Allan, who had cried off the first match.
The match started on 31 March on what was reportedly a softer Melbourne pitch following overnight rain. Lillywhite won the toss and put Australia in.
The Australians, exhausted from a long colonial summer and missing Bannerman through finger injury and Gregory's continued reliance on Kendall, were a notch below their Melbourne best. Australia were dismissed for 122 in their first innings, with Shaw and Hill running through a top order in which only Tom Horan (19) reached double figures. England replied with 261, of which Ulyett's 52 and Lillywhite's 22 were the highest scores. Australia 259 in the second innings, led by Horan's 33 and Murdoch's 17, set England 121 to win. Ulyett anchored the chase and England won by 4 wickets. The match took five playing days, much of it in showery weather, and confirmed that the first Test loss had not been a freak. The two matches together would later be considered the first Test series — though no one called it that at the time.
Australia 122 all out; Shaw 5/40
England 261 in reply; Ulyett 52, Hill 49
Australia 259 second innings; Horan 33
England 122-6, win by 4 wickets
31 Mar 1877
England put Australia in; bowled out for 122
2 Apr 1877
England 261 in reply
3 Apr 1877
Australia 259 in second innings
4 Apr 1877
England 122-6, win by 4 wickets
“Honour was satisfied on both sides.”
England's first Test win, by 4 wickets, levelling what later historians designated the first Test series at 1-1.
The second Test is the smaller of the two 1877 Melbourne matches in popular memory but it is the first England Test win and the match that retrospectively turned 'a single odd contest' into 'a Test series'. The 1-1 result helped justify the next tour exchanges in 1878 and 1878-79.
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.