Edgbaston, 1968. A match haunted by caprice, where sodden turf and bruised bodies conspired to rob cricket of a more decisive conclusion. Here was a Test that promised spectacle — the grandeur of personal milestones, the urgency of series-defining ambitions — yet yielded ultimately to damp anticlimax.
It was rain that had the first and last word. The opening day was surrendered without a ball bowled, the ground so saturated by Wednesday’s storms that by 10 a.m. play was abandoned. Bernard Flack and his ground staff worked small miracles to salvage the rest, and so cricket, like a patient recovering from fever, gingerly resumed. But the elements would reclaim their due at the end, steady rain intervening on the final afternoon, leaving ambitions soaked and unfinished.
Cowdrey: A Century of Tests, and Then One More
If the match denied a team triumph, it still crowned a personal saga. Colin Cowdrey, ambling to the crease to an ovation from 18,000 hearts and the friendly applause of the Australians, became the first cricketer to step into his hundredth Test. He adorned this rare milestone with a century — his 21st in Tests — carved with strokes elegant enough to momentarily hush concerns of weather and outcome.
It was more than just another hundred. When Cowdrey reached 60, he joined Wally Hammond as only the second batsman to breach the 7,000-run barrier in Tests. And yet, the ghost of Bradman hovered over these statistics: the Don had come within a whisker of 7,000 in just 52 matches — 48 fewer innings than Cowdrey required. The comparison was less an indictment than a reminder of Bradman’s inhuman scale.
The Body’s Betrayals: A Theatre of Injury
The match became, in its way, a quiet theatre of physical betrayal. Cowdrey, sometime after reaching 50, pulled a muscle in his back and had Boycott as runner for the remainder of his fine innings. Australia’s captain Lawry did not fare better; a snorting delivery from Snow broke the little finger of his right hand, sending him from the field on Saturday evening. Thus, both Australian openers were laid low with the score still trembling at 10.
Leadership itself became fragmented: Graveney, the elegant stand-in for England, and McKenzie, pressed awkwardly into command for Australia. A Test that was to test team strategies turned instead into a story of deputies and patchwork plans.
Under the Grey Sky: England’s Measured Ascent
England’s innings began with careful intent. With only five specialist batsmen, Edrich and Boycott accumulated 65 cautious runs before lunch on the second day, watchful against McKenzie’s seam, Freeman’s cunning breaks, and Connolly’s subtle variations. Gleeson later extracted low, sinister bounce that threatened more than just technique.
When Boycott misjudged a sweep against Gleeson and departed, the stage cleared for Cowdrey’s entrance, and the tempo subtly lifted. His cover drives and clever leg-side placements confounded Lawry’s shifting fields, forcing even the brilliant Australian outfielders — Redpath, Sheahan, Walters — into desperate saves. Taber’s keeping, sharp and athletic, kept the innings honest.
The second new ball brought Edrich’s undoing for a studious 88, and a ferocious break-back from Freeman immediately accounted for Barrington. But with Graveney’s cultured support, Cowdrey pressed on, finishing the day 95 not out.
By next morning, he laboured half an hour for the five singles needed to complete his hundred, a small illustration of the pitch’s gentle conspiracies and the discipline required to master them. Graveney himself advanced toward a century of his own until Connolly, switching angles, slid one past to clip his leg stump for 96. England’s tail, beyond a bright stand of 33 by Snow and Underwood, folded tamely.
The Australians’ Reprieve and England’s Unexpected Boldness
Australia’s reply stumbled at once, Lawry and Redpath removed so early that the Saturday crowd of 25,000 caught the scent of triumph. But Cowper, serene and left-handed, joined with Chappell to mend the innings, their watchful 109 for one by stumps dissolving English dreams of quick victories.
Monday arrived with renewed English daring. Graveney, thinking perhaps of the weather to come, pressed his spin pair, Underwood and Illingworth, into prolonged spells. They were richly rewarded after lunch: five wickets tumbled for just nine runs, Australia only narrowly avoiding the follow-on.
Suddenly the contest found its urgency. England, 187 ahead, batted with a decisiveness rare in their tradition. Boycott, Edrich and Graveney all pressed the scoring rate against superb fielding — Redpath, Sheahan and Walters running, diving, saving with pantherish commitment.
A Finale Washed in Grey
So came the last morning, Australia set 330 to win in six hours and ten minutes. When Snow castled Cowper’s middle stump early, Edgbaston stirred once more with possibility. But Chappell, judicious and calm, anchored the innings with 71 over three hours, his nine boundaries small acts of defiance.
As Underwood and Illingworth spun their web, Cowper methodically kept the left-armer busy while Chappell handled Illingworth’s drift. England’s final success came when Snow trapped Redpath lbw; after that, nothing. A drizzle turned steady, play stopped at 12.30, and it was three rain-sodden hours later that the match was finally abandoned to nature.
A Test of Contrasts
This match, for all its incomplete promise, revealed much of cricket’s layered theatre. It was a game of personal milestones and fragile bodies, of fielders hurling themselves over heavy turf to snatch single runs from a ledger that might mean everything in hindsight. It was Cowdrey’s century of appearances honoured with a century of runs, Lawry’s broken finger, Snow’s steaming pace, Underwood’s sly trajectories.
And above all, it was a reminder that cricket — uniquely vulnerable to the sky — can be shaped by powers no strategy can withstand. In the end, it was not bat nor ball nor nerve that decided Edgbaston’s fate, but a slow grey drizzle falling through the July air, dissolving contests and ambitions alike.
Thank You
Faisal Caesar
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