When David toppled Goliath
The Black Caps couldn’t deliver the ultimate 50th anniversary present, but Tony Smith looks back on New Zealand’s first test cricket win over Australia, in 1974.
If you thought Monday’s hui at Hagley Oval in Christchurch was tense, spare a thought for the state of mind of the less than mindful motorist absorbed by New Zealand’s first test cricket win over Australia 50 years ago this week.
The groundbreaking 1974 team were guests of honour at a Christchurch reunion held by the Canterbury Cricket Trust last weekend during the 2024 Black Caps’ bold, but ulitimately unsuccessful, bid to commemorate their forebears’ feat.
Half a century has elapsed with the alacrity of a Richard Hadlee outswinger, but the memories would remain vivid for a side that laid the platform for Tim Southee and his current Black Caps band.
Bevan Congdon and his crew’s milestone victory, on March 13, 1974, was hailed by Kiwi cricket chief Walter Hadlee as the time New Zealand finally emerged from the cricketing shadows. Hadlee Sr was so happy that he awarded the New Zealanders their first winning bonus, the princely sum of $100 per man.
The Press, Christchurch’s morning daily, ignored its news staples and led the front page with the test triumph.
Sports editor and esteemed cricket writer Dick Brittenden regaled readers with the tale “that the gentleman who was called through the public address system to leave Lancaster Park and turn off the motor of his car after half an hour’s play … somehow emphasised the anxiety which most of the spectators showed”.
New Zealand needed just 51 runs on March 13, 1974, the final day of an absorbing encounter not without controversy and nerve-jangling ebb and blow.
Some 6000 fans wagged work on a Wednesday to watch a doughty 21-yearold Jeremy Coney dig in for 14 runs and deny the Australian attack an early breakthrough. They rose to applaud opener Glenn Turner on becoming the first New Zealander to score a century in each innings of a test.
Scores of schoolkids sprinted on to the ground after Ken Wadsworth whacked a four for the winning runs. An opportunist souvenir seeker whipped Doug Walters’ baggy green cap from his head, but the Australian batting star gave chase and retrieved his headwear. As a disconsolate Greg Chappell trudged off the field he accepted a consolation can of beer from a punter.
The Australians were red-hot favourites after drawing a high-scoring first test at Wellington’s Basin Reserve, where they amassed 971 runs across two innings.
Captain Ian Chappell led some of Australian cricket’s biggest names, including his brother Greg, Walters, wicketkeeper Rodney Marsh, openers Keith Stackpole and Ian Redpath, and bowlers Max Walker, Kerry O’Keeffe and Geoff Dymock.
Australia would later lament their failure to build big totals in either innings. Only Redpath frustrated New Zealand’s seam attack in the first dig, top-scoring with 71 in a total of 223.
Richard Hadlee claimed Ian Chappell for 20 and Walters and Ian Davis for single-figure scores to finish with 3-39. Southpaw seamer Richard Collinge chimed in with 3-70 while captain Congdon snared 3-33 off 11 overs with his gentler medium pace.
By the end of the second day, Turner, the Worcestershire county professional, was on 99 not out after one of his cagier knocks. New Zealand were 195 for 5.
In his 1975 book My Way, Turner remembered that the atmosphere at the park was electric. By the middle of the test, he wrote, “it seems as if the whole of Christchurch had its eye turned to the match, the whole town was alive and buzzing”. Crowd support for Turner and his team-mates was “overwhelmingly encouraging’’, but the tension “seemed to grow apace with my progress towards my century”. In the last half-hour before stumps it “became almost unbearable’’.
Turner recalled batting for half an hour on the third morning before he got the run needed to reach his ton. Then he was caught by Stackpole at second slip, off a Greg Chappell lifter, for 101. Wadsworth (24 runs) and Richard Hadlee (23) contributed mightily to the Kiwis reaching 255 for a 32-run lead.
The third day belonged to Walters, 52 not out at stumps with Australia at 211-6, a lead of 179.
The teams adjourned for a rest day – a feature of test cricket then when most players were still amateurs – after the third day. By midday on the fourth, Hadlee and his brother Dayle were being applauded off their home ground, having winkled Australia out for 259 in their second innings. Richard had 4-75.
New Zealand’s second innings on the penultimate day was not without its flutters. Three Kiwis, opener John Parker, John (Mystery) Morrison and captain Congdon (run out after mis-hearing a call from Turner), were dismissed within the space of 11 runs.
Turner was in top touch again – Dick Brittenden described him as “still and watchful as a cat, the slow movement of the bat like a flicking tail, but he was swift to strike when the opportunity offered”.
Canterbury stalwart Brian Hastings joined with Turner to put on 115 in 153 minutes. Just after they reached the 100 milestone near the close of play, Hastings hit a ball to the boundary. Some spectators signalled six, and umpire Bob Monteith concurred, but Turner went to say the ball had clearly bounced before the rope.
At that point Australian captain Ian Chappell sprinted from his spot in the slips to approach the umpire at the opposite end of the pitch.
Brittenden’s news report claimed Chappell used “allegedly abusive language’’. Turner was “very upset’’ and he and several other New Zealand players felt an apology was warranted. Chappell refused to comment after stumps, but Kiwi captain Congdon went to the Australian dressing room to formally request an apology.
A Press reporter approached Chappell at a teams function later that night, and the skipper issued a “no comment’’. When the scribe asked if he had made an apology, Chappell said: “You heard me, didn’t you?’’ He maintained his silence at the end of the test, insisting “what happens on a cricket field stays there.
… I won’t be apologising to anyone for anything.”
Turner wrote in My Way that he felt an apology was warranted for an “unedifying and unpleasant’’ experience because the language was “as bad as you’d hear anywhere’’, and “it didn’t just happen once’’.
“From this point on, relationships between the two teams became very tense and sour, and I have to admit that from here on all enjoyment went out of the series as far as I was concerned.’’
It didn’t diminish the crowd’s enjoyment of the final day’s play, however, with Turner – 110 not out after facing 355 balls in 370 minutes and striking 11 fours – hailed with a hero’s ovation after Wadsworth struck the winning runs.
The magic of the moment was not lost on Brittenden, a cricket scholar and historian. “It has been a long, hard road for New Zealand cricket. The prize, the greatest New Zealand has won, was ample balm for the cuts and bruises of the past.’’
He hailed the “handsome margin’’ of the win as New Zealand became “the last of the cricketing countries to defeat the most aggressive and ebullient of opponents, Australia”.
As for Richard Hadlee, who would go on to more test triumphs against Australia (9-52 in Brisbane in 1985, anyone?), he rated the 1974 breakthrough as entirely merited. “It was a great day for New Zealand cricket, the players, the followers, for New Zealand sport in general,’’ he wrote in his book co-authored by Brittenden.
“David 1 Goliath 0.”