The Australian cricket team of 1948 was captained by Don Bradman, who was making his fourth and final tour of England. The team is famous for being the only Test match side to play an entire tour of England without losing a match.
This feat earned them the nickname of “The Invincibles”, and they are regarded as one of the greatest cricket teams of all time. According to the Australian federal government the team “is one of Australia’s most cherished sporting legends.”
Including five Test matches, Australia played a total of 34 matches, of which 31 were first-class, between 28 April and 18 September. Two of the non-first-class matches were played in Scotland. They had a busy schedule, with 112 days of play scheduled in 144 days, meaning that they often played every day of the week except Sunday.
Their record in the first-class games was 23 won and 8 drawn; in all matches, they won 25 and drew 9; many of the victories were by large margins. They won the Test series 4–0 with one draw.
The strength of the Australian team was based around its formidable batting line-up, which included Bradman, Arthur Morris, vice-captain Lindsay Hassett, Neil Harvey and Sid Barnes, and the hostile fast bowling of Ray Lindwall, Keith Miller and Bill Johnston.
Due to the popularity of Bradman, generally regarded as the greatest batsman of all time, and the fact that he had announced that it was his farewell international tour, the Australians were greeted with much fanfare across the country, and many records for match attendances were broken. The record for Test attendance at a match in England was broken three times, in the Second, Third and Fourth Tests, and stands to this day.
Information used in this article is from Wikipedia. The featured image in this article is titled “Unknown, from the Davis Sporting Collection. Wikipedia listed it as public domain. It is not of the 1948 team. For more sports, news and information follow the Midwest Sports Network on Twitter @MWSNsports or like the MWSN page on Facebook.
