As England’s team approach the third Ashes Test, it’s tempting to link their tour so far with the Adelaide rollercoaster launched in 1888. Then you realise it’s not accurate because a rollercoaster has to offer some ups as well as downs. Still, perhaps the players can find inspiration in some of the stories of the past that took place at this very ground.
The Adelaide rollercoaster
These days walking through the pleasant gardens or across the curving footbridge on the way to Adelaide Oval, it’s difficult to picture a 140-metre carnival ride spanning the whole width of the ground on one side. Known as a switchback railway at the time, the first in the world had opened at Coney Island, New York, only five years earlier. Adelaide went next, building two lines of vast wooden scaffolding to support parallel railway tracks, with an elevated station at one end.
With no source of power but gravity, the ride had to work using the weight of its carriages and passengers: down a steep drop to get it going, up a following rise thanks to the momentum, then continuing that pattern towards a lower finish at the far end. Then the carriage had to be hauled up on to the higher starting point of the opposite track and reloaded to make its way back. The slope was “very steep and the cars shoot down at a terrific rate”, the Evening Journal reported. “When everything is finished and the railway is in thorough working order, it will, no doubt, become very popular, as the sensation is pleasant and the pastime free from danger, if passengers hold to the seats as they should do.”
That prognosis was right: after the railway was formally opened by Lord Mayor James Shaw on 18 January 1889, the South Australian Cricket Association claimed that 10,000 people rode it in the next 30 hours. Free sessions for ladies and children were put on in following days, and the rollercoaster, always intended to be temporary, lasted a couple of decades instead. Its end came with the outbreak of the first world war, when it was pulled apart and set ablaze in a fundraising spectacle for the war. But they say that on a still and moonlit night, you can still hear the voices of people having a very nice time.
A record for 118 years and counting
When you scan the list of Australian record partnerships for each wicket, predictable surnames are there: three Bradmans, a Ponting, Walters, Lawry. The least known to a contemporary eye might be Roger Hartigan, real name Michael, who still holds a record from 1908: the eighth-wicket partnership with the great Clem Hill.
The context makes it extraordinary. Hartigan was on debut, and had to get extra leave approved by his boss via telegram. Hill was desperately ill with the flu, to the point dropping down to No 9 in the order and throwing up mid-innings. Australia needed a miracle. In the third Test of an Ashes series tied 1-1, a glittering batting order that named Trumper, Noble, Macartney, Armstrong and Ransford was not enough to avoid trailing the first innings by 78 runs, then falling to 180 for 7 second time around. In a timeless match, Australia led by only 102 with three wickets in hand.
Queensland was regarded as a minor cricketing state, which might be why Hartigan was listed at No 8, but he was regarded as the best bat in his stage. He had to withstand the precipitous situation, two bowling geniuses in SF Barnes and Wilfred Rhodes, and extreme heat: reports at the time of 150 degrees in the old money are a stretch given that means 65 degrees Celsius, but you get the picture.
And yet, from that score of 180 when they started, Hartigan and Hill took Australia to 397 by stumps, and 423 when Hartigan fell the next day for 116: the fifth Australian to make a ton on debut. Hill carried on to 160, Australia to 506, and bowled out England to win in a canter. The partnership was 243, and with the way that teams are structured nowadays, it will take something remarkable down the order for it ever to fall. Hartigan played only two Tests but deserves his spot in the canon.
Clarrie’s roundabout revenge
You may have heard that Don Bradman didn’t always get along with his teammates, and the relationship with leg-spinner Clarrie Grimmett was one that became frosty. Before that, the pair played and won together plenty for Australia and for South Australia, after both moved to Adelaide, but after Clarrie’s record-setting 44 wickets in a series for Australia in South Africa in 1936, Don punted him from the team for a little-known competitor who didn’t do much with the spot.
Clarrie carried on domestically for a few more years, setting an Australian first-class season record of 73 wickets, and still holds the overall wicket record for the Sheffield Shield. But between seasons in 1938, bored and annoyed that the Australian team was touring England without him, he took up an invitation to visit India and coach a royal cricket enthusiast named the Raja of Jath. Grimmett was a master of spin bowling, but also fancied himself a source of knowledge about batting. In the prince’s employ was a talented youngster named Vijay Hazare, and Grimmett set about correcting Hazare’s defensive technique.
In the summer of 1947/48, when cricket was resuming after the war and India visited Australia for the first time, in the middle order was one VS Hazare. His returns were modest until he arrived in Adelaide. On what was home ground for both of them, Bradman was captaining Australia and Grimmett watching from the stands. While Bradman made big runs and forced India to follow on, the Australians were held up across three days by Vijay Hazare.
A century in both innings, the first Indian to achieve the feat, against the fast bowling of Ray Lindwall and Keith Miller, was an all-time effort, and Grimmett celebrated from the seats with both hands clasped above his head. Afterwards he invited Hazare to his home in Adelaide and toasted him at dinner, while Bradman was impressed enough to remark on the grace and tenacity of Hazare’s play. Grimmett’s student couldn’t beat Australia on his own, but he made them work hard for their reward, and nobody could have been more satisfied at sticking one up the Don than Clarrie Grimmett.
