New Zealand v England
1930-01-10
On 10 January 1930 New Zealand played their first Test match, against an MCC side at Lancaster Park, Christchurch. Tom Lowry captained the home team and Stewie Dempster batted nearly four hours for 136 in the second innings. England won by eight wickets but New Zealand's elevation to Test status was the inter-war period's quiet expansion of the international game.
England v Australia
1930-07-11
On 11 July 1930 a 21-year-old Don Bradman walked in at 1 for 1 and by stumps had scored an unbeaten 309 — still the only triple-century in a single day's Test play. He went on to 334 the next morning, then the highest individual score in Test cricket, surpassing Andy Sandham's 325. The match drew, but the innings catapulted Bradman from prodigy to phenomenon and underwrote his world-record series tally of 974 runs.
England v Australia
1930-06-27
Two weeks before his Headingley triple, Bradman walked out at Lord's and produced what he would call, decades later, the finest innings of his life: 254 from 376 balls, 25 fours, almost every stroke struck in the meat of the bat. Australia made 729 for 6 declared, levelled the series, and put English bowling on notice that the 1930 tour would be unlike anything previous.
England v Australia
1930-08-16
With the series locked at 1-1 and the Ashes on the line, Bradman walked out at The Oval and made 232 across two days. Australia won by an innings and 39 runs, regained the urn, and finished a series in which Bradman had averaged 139.14. It was the innings during which Douglas Jardine, watching from the pavilion, began thinking seriously about leg theory.
West Indies v England
1930-02-21
On 21 February 1930, in the second Test of MCC's tour of the Caribbean, West Indies beat England by 289 runs at Bourda in Georgetown — their first Test victory, three years after admission to Test status. George Headley, on debut at 20, scored 114 and 112; Clifford Roach made 209 in the first innings; Learie Constantine took 9 wickets in the match. West Indies cricket had its founding win.