The 24th Test between Australia and New Zealand had all the hallmarks of a classic: runs and wickets, records and heartbreak, controversy and theatre. Yet, what lingers most from that Melbourne summer of 1987 is not just the scorecard, but the emotional scar it carved into both nations. Before 127,000 spectators, cricket morphed into something greater—a drama of will, fate, and defiance.
The Spark of Controversy
New Zealand’s innings began with steady promise. John Wright anchored, Martin Crowe sculpted elegance, and Hadlee’s shadow loomed from the dressing room. Yet, controversy struck before tea. Jeff Dyer, the Australian wicketkeeper, claimed a catch off Jones that television replays later revealed had touched the ground. The umpires—caught between instinct and protocol—gave it out. The ghosts of injustice settled early into the Test.
John Wright, stoic and stubborn, came agonisingly close to etching his name in Boxing Day history. His 99—an innings of grit lasting more than five hours—ended a run short of immortality, echoing the cruel fates of Beck and Hadlee himself in Tests past. Cricket, ever capricious, had again denied a milestone.
The Australian Riposte
If Wright’s near-century was heartbreak, then Martin Crowe’s 82 was refinement, sculpted in silken drives. Still, the tourists’ 317 felt precarious. Enter Hadlee—an artist of destruction. His four wickets ripped through Australia, leaving them teetering at 170 for five.
And then came defiance. Peter Sleep, the unlikely hero, compiled a dogged 90, aided by the debutant Tony Dodemaide—who, armed with barely a day’s notice and borrowed kit, seized his moment with bat and ball. Their ninth-wicket stand swung the pendulum. Suddenly, Australia had a lead. Suddenly, Melbourne roared again.
Crowe’s Brilliance, Border’s Century of Catches
New Zealand’s second innings brought flashes of glory. Crowe again dazzled, racing to 79 with a dozen crisp boundaries. In reaching 34, he became only the seventh man in history to score 4,000 first-class runs in a calendar year—an accolade that placed him alongside Hutton. His dismissal, snapped brilliantly by Border, doubled as the Australian captain’s 100th Test catch. A symbolic passing: youth’s ascent marked by the veteran’s grasp.
Set 247 to win, Australia approached the chase with composure. By late afternoon on the final day, at 176 for four, victory seemed inevitable. Then Hadlee returned.
Hadlee’s Last Crusade
It was his 70th over of the match, but Hadlee bowled as though youth had returned to his limbs. The ball leapt, seamed, and swung as if it carried divine instruction. He tore through the lower order, each wicket lifting New Zealand closer to an improbable victory. The crowd—nearly 24,000 strong in the ground and millions more across Australia—watched spellbound. Quiz shows were cancelled; national attention belonged to the MCG.
With each scalp, Hadlee carved himself deeper into cricketing legend: ten wickets in the match, for the record eighth time. He surpassed Barnes, Grimmett, Lillee. Only Ian Botham remained ahead of him. One more wicket, and the record was his.
But cricket’s cruel theatre had one more twist.
Morrison’s Agony, Whitney’s Defiance
Danny Morrison, barely 21, was entrusted with the penultimate over. His inswinger to Craig McDermott—perfect, venomous—thudded onto the pads. The MCG froze, eyes fixed on umpire Dick French. Not out. Morrison collapsed onto the turf in disbelief, staring up into the endless Melbourne sky. A decision, perhaps history itself, had slipped away.
The task fell then to Mike Whitney, Australia’s No. 11 and self-confessed worst batsman. Whitney, who entered the ground expecting to pack for Perth, found himself standing between Hadlee and cricketing immortality. Helmets on, nerves jangling, he survived. Three overs of defiance. Three overs that transformed him from obscurity into folklore.
When Hadlee’s final delivery was blocked, he did not rage. Instead, he walked down, placed an arm around Whitney’s shoulder, and offered a handshake that embodied the spirit of the game. A gladiator saluting his unlikely conqueror.
Beyond the Scorecard
The match was drawn. Australia retained the Trans-Tasman Trophy for the first time. Hadlee walked away with ten wickets, the Man of the Match, and the Man of the Series. Yet the trophy’s gleam was dulled by the aching truth: New Zealand had been denied not by effort, but by fate, officiating, and Whitney’s improbable courage.
For Australia, Border tasted his first Test series victory as captain. For Dodemaide, it was a debut etched in history—fifty runs and six wickets in the same match, a feat unmatched since Albert Trott. For Sleep, 90 runs became his legacy’s jewel.
But above all, it was Hadlee’s Test. At 36, with the weight of a nation on his shoulders, he came within a single ball of rewriting history. And in that pursuit, he transcended mere sport. He became, as Danny Morrison later said, New Zealand’s Superman.
Epilogue: A Test That Refused to Die
Nearly four decades on, the Boxing Day Test of 1987 is remembered not for who won or lost, but for how it was played: as drama, as theatre, as literature. It was about the almosts—the almost-century, the almost-victory, the almost-record.
In those almosts lay the true poetry of cricket: that triumph is fleeting, that greatness often resides not in conquest but in the chase, and that sometimes the most enduring victories are those denied.
Thank You
Faisal Caesar
