#wwii

11 incidents tagged

Keith Miller's 185 for the Dominions at Lord's — August 1945

Dominions XI v England XI

1945-08-27

Three months after VE Day, Keith Miller hit 185 for a Dominions XI against England at Lord's, the highest score of an unforgettable post-war summer. He went from 61 not out overnight to 185 in 99 minutes on the third morning, striking seven sixes — including one over the press box that landed in the upper tier and another that cleared 170 metres into Block Q. Wisden called the match 'one of the finest ever seen' at headquarters; Miller's innings, more than any other in 1945, told English audiences that pre-war balance of power had been broken.

#keith-miller#dominions#lords

⭐Serious

The Victory Tests — England v Australian Services, May-Aug 1945

England v Australian Services XI

1945-05-19

Less than two weeks after VE Day, England and an Australian Services XI began a five-match Victory Test series at Lord's that ended 2-2 with one drawn after a final-day finish at Old Trafford on 22 August 1945. Played as celebration cricket and watched by 367,000 people across three grounds, the series re-introduced first-class cricket to a war-weary Britain, launched Keith Miller and confirmed Lindsay Hassett's quality as a captain. Although first-class only — neither board would grant Test status to Services teams — the series functioned as a public reopening of cricket and is the foundation of the modern English summer calendar.

#victory-tests#1945#wwii

⭐Moderate

Lindsay Hassett — Services Captain in the Victory Tests, 1945

Australian Services XI v England

1945-05-19

Lindsay Hassett, the only experienced Test cricketer in the Australian Services side, captained the team that brought first-class cricket back to England in the summer of 1945. With Stan Sismey, Cec Pepper, Keith Miller, Graham Williams and Lindsay Hassett himself doing most of the cricketing work, the Services drew the five-Test 'Victory' series 2-2 against an England side led by Walter Hammond. Hassett, who had refused an officer's commission and toured on warrant officer's pay of 12 shillings a day, was praised in Wisden as 'a cricketer-captain in the Bradman mould but with rather more humour'.

#lindsay-hassett#victory-tests#1945

⭐Serious

The Doodlebug at Lord's — RAF v Army, 29 July 1944

Army XI v Royal Air Force XI

1944-07-29

On 29 July 1944, before more than 3,000 spectators at Lord's, an Army XI played the Royal Air Force in a wartime charity match featuring Wally Hammond. About an hour into play, a German V-1 'doodlebug' flying bomb cut its motor directly overhead. Players and crowd flattened themselves on the turf; the bomb dived to earth roughly 200 yards short of the ground. Bob Wyatt picked himself up, completed his interrupted run-up, and Jack Robertson lofted the very next ball into the Grand Stand for six. Plum Warner later said the moment summarised what cricket meant to wartime London.

#lords#wwii#doodlebug

⭐Explosive

Maurice Turnbull Killed by Sniper at Montchamp — August 1944

Glamorgan / England (cricket); 1st Battalion Welsh Guards (military)

1944-08-05

Major Maurice Turnbull of the Welsh Guards, the Glamorgan and England all-round sportsman who had played nine Tests, captained Glamorgan for ten years and represented Wales at rugby and squash, was shot through the head by a sniper near the Normandy village of Montchamp on 5 August 1944. He was 38. His was the second Test cricketer death of the Normandy campaign and ended the most polished all-round sporting career produced by inter-war Welsh cricket.

#maurice-turnbull#wwii#glamorgan

😂Moderate

Father Time Falls — A Barrage-Balloon Cable at Lord's, 1944

n/a (ground incident)

1944-09-01

Late in the 1944 wartime season at Lord's, a steel cable from a barrage balloon moored on the Nursery Ground broke loose in a wind and snagged the iconic Father Time weather-vane on top of the Grand Stand. The cable wrapped around the figure, brought it down and deposited Father Time among the front-row seats below. The most high-profile damage to Lord's during the Second World War, MCC's curators noted, came not from the Luftwaffe but from one of London's own air-defence balloons.

#lords#father-time#wwii

⭐Explosive

Hedley Verity Dies of Wounds at Caserta — July 1943

Yorkshire / England (cricket); 1st Battalion Green Howards (military)

1943-07-31

Hedley Verity, the Yorkshire and England slow left-arm bowler whose 144 Test wickets at 24.37 included a record 15 wickets in a single Lord's Test, died on 31 July 1943 in a German-controlled hospital at Caserta after being severely wounded leading his platoon during the Allied invasion of Sicily. He was 38, and had not played first-class cricket since taking 7/9 against Sussex on the day Britain declared war. His death — alongside that of fellow Test cricketers Ken Farnes, Ross Gregory and Maurice Turnbull — became the most poignant individual loss cricket suffered in the Second World War.

#hedley-verity#wwii#yorkshire

⭐Explosive

Ross Gregory Killed in RAF Wellington Crash — Bengal, June 1942

Victoria / Australia (cricket); RAF 215 Squadron (military)

1942-06-10

Pilot Officer Ross Gregory of the Royal Australian Air Force, attached to RAF 215 Squadron, was killed on 10 June 1942 when the Wellington bomber on which he was the observer exploded in mid-air near Gafargaon in the Mymensingh district of Bengal. Gregory had played two Tests for Australia in 1937 and was widely tipped to be a long-term replacement for Bradman in the middle order. He is the only Test cricketer to die in active service in Asia, and his death — alongside those of Farnes, Verity and Turnbull — became part of the running ledger of cricketers lost to the war.

#ross-gregory#wwii#australia

⭐Explosive

Ken Farnes Killed in RAF Training Crash — Chipping Warden, October 1941

Essex / England (cricket); No.12 OTU, RAF Chipping Warden (military)

1941-10-20

On the night of 20 October 1941, the England Test fast bowler Pilot Officer Ken Farnes was killed when his Vickers Wellington bomber crashed shortly after take-off from RAF Chipping Warden in Oxfordshire on a night-flying training exercise. Farnes was 30, had taken 60 wickets in 15 Tests between 1934 and 1939, and had been one of the few amateurs in the country considered the equal of the leading Australian fast bowlers. His death, just 11 weeks before Hedley Verity was wounded in Sicily, was the first major loss of an active England Test cricketer in the Second World War.

#ken-farnes#wwii#essex

⭐Serious

Bradman Invalided Out — Fibrositis Ends His War, June 1941

Royal Australian Air Force / Australian Imperial Force (Bradman)

1941-06-30

Don Bradman, Australia's captain and the world's most famous cricketer, was invalided out of military service on 30 June 1941 with chronic fibrositis. He had enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force in June 1940, transferred to the Army School of Physical Training at Frankston, and within months was so debilitated by muscular pain in his back and right arm that he could not shave himself or comb his hair. The discharge — barely reported at the time under wartime censorship — kept him out of cricket for almost five years and shaped the legend of his post-war return.

#bradman#raaf#aif

⭐Serious

Old Trafford Bombed — Manchester Blitz, December 1940

n/a (ground incident)

1940-12-23

On the nights of 22-23 and 23-24 December 1940 — the Manchester Blitz — Old Trafford cricket ground was hit by Luftwaffe high-explosive bombs aimed at the Trafford Park industrial complex nearby. The members' dining room and the groundsman's quarters were destroyed; most of the pavilion needed rebuilding. The ground had been requisitioned earlier as a Dunkirk transit camp and a supply depot, and Lancashire CCC effectively closed for the war, redirecting members' subscriptions to a war relief fund.

#old-trafford#manchester#wwii