Brick by Brick: The Australian Cricketers in England 1964

ACS Book of the Week

Each week we spotlight a fascinating title from the vast collection catalogued in the Cricket Bibliography project, drawing on insightful (but not necessarily positive!) reviews from the archives of our journal. Today we bring you John Ward on Max Bonnell’s Brick by Brick: The Australian Cricketers in England 1964 (2025).

A vintage cricket tour deserves a vintage book. The 1964 tour of England by the Australians is scarcely a vintage tour, containing a largely forgotten series between two mediocre teams playing generally mediocre cricket in mediocre weather – and yet we are blessed, more than sixty years later, with a vintage book about it.

The Australian touring party was written off as a poor team by most critics, some of whom called it the weakest Australian team ever to tour England – since 1912, at any rate – and yet Australia could call themselves world champions, being unbeaten in a Test series since 1956, though they had recently drawn home series against England and South Africa. They were a fading power. A few months later they would go down to West Indies away. The 1964 series itself was memorable for little, except perhaps for Peter Burge’s match-winning century in the only match to yield a result, and Fred Trueman’s record 300th Test wicket.

Richie Benaud had recently retired with a great reputation as the Australian captain, and this post was taken over by the untried Bob Simpson, a very hard act to follow. There were concerns that they were not a settled team; many were inexperienced in England, especially on green pitches that suited English seam bowling. The book tells of the difficulties the new tourists had in adjusting to English conditions – Neil Hawke, Ian Redpath and others – in weather that was often cold and wet, especially in the Test matches. The players were all amateurs, having to leave their jobs and families for seven months, as they stopped over to play series against India and Pakistan on the way home. All are analysed in the book and their progress noted, with their views given when obtainable.

Opinions about Simpson’s qualities as a captain varied, both among critics and his own players, and the author discusses these. He was on the whole methodical rather than inspiring, but he knew what he wanted and had a clear strategy, unlike Ted Dexter, who seems to have been one of England’s most ineffective captains. The series produced much slow, boring cricket, and yet it aroused much public interest, and the grounds were generally packed for the Test matches, despite the view of many critics forecasting the death of cricket.

‘What do they know of cricket who only cricket know?’ Mr Bonnell knows a great deal more than cricket, and perhaps the greatest strength of his outstanding book is how he places this tour in the context of Britain in 1964. It is the Britain where the old ways of life are clashing with the new, the Britain of the Beatles, the Mods and Rockers, the Kray brothers and much more, a general election pending, and all these are covered in most relevant and interesting fashion in this book, with frank observations at all times. There is much insight into county cricket and the way English cricket was run, as well as the characteristics of the leading English cricketers. It is a great panoramic view of the Britain of two generations ago, a Britain still partly under the shadow of two World Wars.

While Australia was rebuilding, so was England, in the bowling department at least. Trueman and Brian Statham were past their peak – in fact Statham was not selected at all – and Trueman had three different opening partners in the four Tests he played in, without any really looking to fit the bill. Only Fred Titmus apart from him took ten wickets in the series. For Australia, Graham McKenzie, Graham Corling and Neil Hawke, once he adjusted to English conditions, did a fine job. England had stronger batting than bowling, though, with Ken Barrington, Dexter and the debutant Geoff Boycott the best of them and had the better of the first two Test matches without looking like winning them.

There are interesting accounts of all the Australians’ matches, and especially the Test matches, with plenty of personal details and analysis of players and officials. Tactics and playing conditions are covered very clearly and there are many relevant quotes from players. The author does not pretend it was an exciting series, but he makes it a very interesting one. The book finishes with good pen-pictures of the players and their careers.

How could this book be improved? I’m not sure it can. I thought it excellent in every way, a book that everybody interested in cricket history would want to read – certainly in my view one of the very best cricket books I have read. Mr Bonnell takes a sow’s ear and makes a silk purse out of it.