Memories of lowest Test score of all time sparked by India collapse

Virat Kohli’s team were bowled out for 36 – India’s lowest Test total – to lose by eight wickets inside three days.

“It was insane,” commented former Australia fast bowler Damien Fleming, who was present at the game. “The last time I saw that would have been Under-12s.”

Fleming’s disbelief was understandable – and it could have been much worse for a side now without Kohli for the rest of the four-match series, as the captain has returned home for the birth of his first child.

At one point, India – despite holding a first innings lead of 53 – were 19-6 in their second innings when Kohli was dismissed, still seven short of the lowest Test score.

That came at Eden Park, Auckland, in 1955 when England bowled out New Zealand for just 26.

Half of the wickets fell to Yorkshiremen – Bob Appleyard took 4-7 and Johnny Wardle 1-0 – as a touring side captained by their county colleague Len Hutton won by an innings and 20 runs to take the two-match series 2-0.

It capped a memorable winter for Hutton and his players, whose 3-1 win in Australia had given England their first Ashes triumph Down Under since the Bodyline series in 1932-33.

India’s total in the pink-ball Test was still the joint fourth-lowest of all-time – and also the lowest since that fixture in 1955, one that summoned the archetypal cliche “men against boys”.

With New Zealand still chasing their first Test victory at the time, all of 25 years and 32 games after joining the elite, they were simply no match for a bowling unit spearheaded by the great pace bowlers Frank Tyson and Brian Statham, with support from all-rounder Trevor Bailey and spinners Appleyard and Wardle.

Having lost the opening Test in Dunedin by eight wickets, the hosts fought doggedly on the first day in Auckland, reaching 189-5 before three late wickets from Appleyard – who could also bowl seam –- sent them into stumps on 199-8.

Statham finished things off the next morning for the addition of one run, and England reached 148-4 at the close of a weather-affected second day, 52 behind.

Following a rest day, they took their total to 246, Hutton leading the way with 53 on what proved to be his final Test innings after dropping himself down to No 5 after picking up an infection prior to the game.

New Zealand – 46 behind when they started their second innings – were blown away inside 27 overs, collapsing from 22-5 to lose their final five wickets for four runs, with only one batsman (Bert Sutcliffe) reaching double figures.

As Hutton wrote: “The key dismissal was Bert Sutcliffe, who made 11. I introduced Wardle to bowl chinamen. Sutcliffe went for a big hit and was bowled.”

Appleyard, who wreaked havoc with three wickets in four balls, was denied a hat-trick in both innings by tail-ender Alex Moir.

He was even taken out of the attack towards the end of the second innings as Hutton turned back to Tyson and Statham, who had started the tour in tandem and who, felt Hutton, should rightly finish it in tandem, too.

“There can’t have been many bowlers in the game’s history who’ve been taken off after taking 4-7,” recalled Appleyard in 2011, four years before his death at the age of 90.

“It was the last match of a long tour in which we’d retained the Ashes in Australia and then gone on to New Zealand, and Len wanted his main bowlers to finish off the New Zealanders.

“So I was denied the chance to get my fifth wicket, but I didn’t mind at all because the likes of Wardle and myself were only the supporting cast to Frank and Brian.

“It was a really nice gesture on Len’s part to bring them back to finish the innings after the wonderful tour we’d all enjoyed.”

Statham removed the last two batsmen as New Zealand fell short of the then lowest Test total of 30, made twice by South Africa against England – at Port Elizabeth in 1896 and at Edgbaston in 1924.

“It was the nadir of New Zealand’s Test performances,” wrote batsman John Reid of the 1955 game (he had top-scored with 73 in the home side’s first innings).

“We had been pretty low on occasions in the past, but this time we really scraped the bottom of the barrel.”

Bert Sutcliffe remembered: “I still cannot fully explain how we were out for 26. Bad batting, of course. Good bowling, undoubtedly. Lack of resolution, almost certainly. And perhaps the intensity of the struggle earlier had taken something out of our rather inexperienced and diffident batsmen.

“It really was an extraordinary affair.”

The innings was done and dusted in one hour and 40 minutes either side of tea.

“It was one of those collapses that suddenly happens,” reflected Appleyard.

“Everything just went for us and the edges went to hand.

“New Zealand had two very good players in John Reid and Bert Sutcliffe, but not too many others who were in that class.

“We didn’t know it was a record at the time, but it’s one that has managed to survive all these years.”

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