Misplaced Pages

Australian cricket team in England in 1956
Date	7 June 1956 – 28 August 1956
Location	England
Result	England won the 5-Test series 2–1
Teams  England  Australia Captains PBH May IWG Johnson Most runs PBH May (453) PE Richardson (364) JW Burke (271) CC McDonald (243) Most wickets JC Laker (46) GAR Lock (15) KR Miller (21) RG Archer (18)
← →

The Australian cricket team toured England in the 1956 season to play a five-match Test series against England for The Ashes.

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'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 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. Earlier in the summer, Laker had also taken ten wickets in an innings against the Australians in a tour match, playing for Surrey.

Test series

1st Test

England	v	Australia
217/8 (dec) (103.4 overs) PE Richardson 81 PBH May 73 KR Miller 4/69		148 (83.1 overs) RN Harvey 64 JC Laker 4/58
188/3 (dec) (61 overs) MC Cowdrey 81 PE Richardson 73 KR Miller 2/58		120/3 (86 overs) JW Burke 58 JC Laker 2/29

• Peter Richardson (Eng) made his Test debut.

2nd Test

Australia	v	England
285 (146.1 overs) CC McDonald 78 JW Burke 65 JC Laker 3/47		171 (82 overs) PBH May 63 KR Miller 5/72
257 (92.5 overs) R Benaud 97 FS Trueman 5/90		186 (99.2 overs) PBH May 53 KR Miller 5/80 RG Archer 4/71

Australia won by 185 runs Lord's Cricket Ground Umpires: DE Davies (ENG) and FS Lee (ENG)

• Pat Crawford and Ken Mackay (Aus) made their Test debuts.

3rd Test

England	v	Australia
325 (167.4 overs) PBH May 101 C Washbrook 98 RR Lindwall 3/67 RG Archer 3/68 R Benaud 3/89		143 (71.1 overs) JW Burke 41 KR Miller 41 JC Laker 5/58 GAR Lock 4/41
		140 (follow-on) (99.3 overs) RN Harvey 69 JC Laker 6/55 GAR Lock 3/40

England won by an innings and 42 runs Headingley Umpires: JS Buller (ENG) and DE Davies (ENG)

• Alan Oakman (Eng) made his Test debut.

4th Test

England	v	Australia
459 (158.3 overs) DS Sheppard 113 PE Richardson 104 MC Cowdrey 80 IW Johnson 4/151		84 (40.4 overs) CC McDonald 32 JC Laker 9/37
		205 (follow-on) (150.2 overs) CC McDonald 89 JC Laker 10/53

England won by an innings and 170 runs Old Trafford Umpires: DE Davies (ENG) and FS Lee (ENG)

5th Test

England	v	Australia
247 (109.2 overs) DCS Compton 94 PBH May 83 RG Archer 5/53 KR Miller 4/91		202 (92 overs) KR Miller 61 JC Laker 4/80
182/3 (dec) (61 overs) DS Sheppard 62 RR Lindwall 1/29		27/5 (38.1 overs) IWG Johnson 10 JC Laker 3/8

References

1. Test Bowling Figures for England, 1956 Ashes
2. Peter Arnold, The Illustrated Encyclopedia of World Cricket, p75, W.H. Smith, 1986
3. E.W. Swanton (ed), The Barclays World of Cricket, p296, Collins, 1986
4. "The IPL's can of worms". ESPN Cricinfo. Retrieved 18 May 2022.

Annual reviews

• Playfair Cricket Annual 1957
• Wisden Cricketers' Almanack 1957

Further reading

• Bill Frindall, The Wisden Book of Test Cricket 1877-1978, Wisden, 1979
• Chris Harte, A History of Australian Cricket, Andre Deutsch, 1993
• Ray Robinson, On Top Down Under, Cassell, 1975

External links

• CricketArchive – tour summaries

v t e The Ashes
List of Ashes series
1850	1884 1886 1888 1890 1893 1896 1899 1882–83 1884–85 1886–87 1887–88 1891–92 1894–95 1897–98
1900	1902 1905 1909 1912 World War I 1921 1926 1930 1934 1938 World War II 1948 1901–02 1903–04 1907–08 1911–12 1920–21 1924–25 1928–29 1932–33 1936–37 1946–47
1950	1953 1956 1961 1964 1968 1972 1975 1977 1981 1985 1989 1993 1997 1950–51 1954–55 1958–59 1962–63 1965–66 1970–71 1974–75 1978–79 1982–83 1986–87 1990–91 1994–95 1998–99
2000	2001 2005 2009 2013 2015 2019 2023 2002–03 2006–07 2010–11 2013–14 2017–18 2021–22
Non-Ashes Australia v England Test series 1876–77 1878–79 1880 1881–82 1882 1945 1976–77 1979–80 1980 1987–88 2027
Matches in white background were played in England, yellow – in Australia.

This article about an international cricket tour of England is a stub. You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it.

• v
• t
• e

• 1956 in Australian cricket
• 1956 in English cricket
• Australian cricket tours of England
• International cricket competitions from 1945–46 to 1960
• The Ashes
• International cricket tour of England stubs