Cricket: Finding reason for a small smile as the stumps rattle

A hush drifted across Eden Park that fateful afternoon of March 28, 1955, and 14,000 New Zealanders stoically watched as England, 46 ahead on the first innings, annihilated the home second innings for 26, the lowest innings total in 402 tests.

The only sounds seem to come from the ball hitting the stumps, the yips of delight from the England bowlers and catchers - and the regular squeak of the players' gate in front of the old Members Stand.

The taste of defeat was more bitter as, halfway through the five-day test Alexander McKenzie Moir had tweaked out five English batsman.

Given a reasonable New Zealand second innings, England could be in serious danger of defeat against Moir's leg-spin on the fifth day.

Stunned silence, too, in the press box in the old No 1 stand, where a dozen or so New Zealand cricket writers mixed with about the same number of Fleet St's finest.

As a novice sports reporter at the Herald I had gained a place among the elite by luck. Jock Graham, a cultured leader writer acted in New Zealand for the Exchange Telegraph news agency in London, but could not find time for the month-long tour.

So there I sat as the Englishmen won all four tour matches, eyes open, ears pricked for any experience I could gain, mostly from Arthur Mailey, whose 69-year-old fingers then spun stories and crisp cartoons instead of leggies and bosies.

Mailey had an affection for Dunedin and as this was my home town he took me under his wing. He taught me so much, bless him.

Then there was Harry Gee, who looked out of his porthole at an Indian Ocean dawn, grabbed his typewriter, raced to the wireless room and sent off his first breathless dispatch: Australia in sight!

And the man from the News of the World who would shut himself off on Friday evenings to write his solitary piece for the week, and spend the rest of his time collecting stockpiles of his favourite pipe tobacco, one of the Drum labels, evidently still an England casualty of the Hitler War.

The problem was Ron Roberts, the man from Reuters, the agency which delivered a battleship's broadside compared with the modest firepower from the Exchange Telegraph.

Very early in the tour Roberts insisted that his copy must go ahead of mine, regardless of the filing order. As I was friendly with the teleprinter operators, who spent time at the Herald, I was able to sidestep Roberts' demand, much to his displeasure.

But this last time I would not miss.

A second or two after Brian Statham bowled John Hayes my copy was with the operator, and winging its way to the rest of the world.

Sounds corny, but on that sad afternoon I may have been the only one of 14,000 New Zealanders with just the hint of a smile on my face.

How does a team get bowled out for 26? Well, in this case England had Frank Tyson with his blistering speed, Statham with his superb accuracy, Johnny Wardle with his wrist-mixture and Bob Appleyard with quite prodigious bounce to go with his off-spin and off-cut. They needed only 105 minutes.