Australian cricket team in England in 1956

The Australian cricket team toured England in the 1956 season

1956 English cricket season

The 1956 English cricket season is memorable for the performances of Jim Laker, especially his unique feat in taking 19 wickets in a match, which he performed in the Old Trafford Test Match. He took a total of 46 wickets in the 5 Tests, a record in an England-Australia series...

to play a five-match Test

Test cricket

Test cricket is the longest form of the sport of cricket. Test matches are played between national representative teams with "Test status", as determined by the International Cricket Council , with four innings played between two teams of 11 players over a period of up to a maximum five days...

series against England for The Ashes

The Ashes

The Ashes is a Test cricket series played between England and Australia. It is one of the most celebrated rivalries in international cricket and dates back to 1882. It is currently played biennially, alternately in the United Kingdom and Australia. Cricket being a summer sport, and the venues...

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England won the series 2-1 with 2 matches drawn and therefore retained The Ashes.

The series is most notable for off-spinner Jim Laker

Jim Laker

James "Jim" Charles Laker was a cricketer who played for England in the 1950s, known for "Laker's match" in 1956 at Old Trafford, when he took nineteen wickets in England's victory against Australia...

's 46 wickets (a record for a 5-Test series) at an average of 9.60, including all ten wickets in the second innings of the fourth Test at Old Trafford, the first time this had been achieved in Test cricket. In that Test, known as Laker's Match, Laker took 19 wickets for 90 runs, still the best match bowling analysis achieved in both Test and all first-class cricket. The cartoonist Roy Ullyett summed up the summer with the picture of a dazed kangaroo

Kangaroo

A kangaroo is a marsupial from the family Macropodidae . In common use the term is used to describe the largest species from this family, especially those of the genus Macropus, Red Kangaroo, Antilopine Kangaroo, Eastern Grey Kangaroo and Western Grey Kangaroo. Kangaroos are endemic to the country...

in Australian strip and the ditty: Here lie the Ashes of '56, skittled by Laker for next to nix. Never forgotten, sorry you thought our wicket rotten, signed "Love from the groundstaff". The second line refers to the Australian complaints that the grass had been shaved off the Old Trafford wicket to help the England spinners.

First Test: Trent Bridge

Second Test: Lord's

Third Test: Headingley

Fourth Test: Old Trafford

Fifth Test: The Oval

External sources

Further reading