Fascinating Facts

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Trooper Baker of the Light Horse.
NAM 2006-11-6-2 Photo by Corporal Adrian Harlen

A cricket match between English and Australian soldiers was played on 25 October 2006 in Basra, Iraq. Undertaken to mark the current Ashes Test series, the match ended with a victory for the Australians. England made 109 for 9 off their 30 overs, but the Australians responded with 113 runs off 27.5 overs. The soldiers involved came from a variety of units. Trooper Baker of the Australian Light Horse was named man of the match.

The match was played on coconut matting surrounded by an area of cleared desert. One of the items removed from the outfield was a Chinese 107mm rocket! Since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in April 2003, the soldiers of both nations have been helping to restore essential infrastructure and provide security.

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Chelsea Pensioners. NAM 1950-11-33-48

On 25 August 1841 a cricket match took place between the Army pensioners of the Royal Hospital Chelsea and the Navy pensioners of the Royal Greenwich Hospital.

The game was held at Camberwell in London and consisted of one-armed and one-legged pensioners. The Chelsea pensioners lost by 19 runs to 176. This was because they had more one-legged players than their maritime rivals!

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The Waterloo Cricket Match, June 2006

Every June the National Army Museum plays an annual game of cricket against the neighbouring Royal Hospital at Burton Court in Chelsea. Museum staff take on the staff and residents of the hospital. The game is organised according to the 1813 rules of cricket. The event commemorates Waterloo Day. The Battle of Waterloo on 18 June 1815 was the last great battle of the Napoleonic Wars (1803-15) and marked the end of France’s attempt to dominate Europe. The next match will take place on the weekend of 16-17 June 2007.

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No. 15 ball pattern hand grenade, 1915. NAM 1980-02-27

During World War One (1914-18) British and Empire soldiers were instructed to lob the Mills bomb using a throwing action similar to bowling in cricket. Training classes instructed the soldiers how best to do this.

There was even a type of British bomb known as the 'cricket ball' grenade. Cylindrical in shape, it was ignited by striking the grenade like a match before it was thrown. It was introduced in July 1915 and used during the Battle of Loos in September but was susceptible to damp and was withdrawn later that year.

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Cricket at Shell Green, Gallipoli, 1915. NAM 2006-11-21

A game of cricket was played during the Allied evacuation of the Gallipoli Peninsula in December 1915. It took place on Shell Green in an attempt to distract the Turks from the imminent departure of Australian troops. Shells were passing overhead all the time the game was in progress. In May 2001 the Australian Cricket Team visited the battlefields of Gallipoli, en-route to their tour of England, to pay homage to the thousands of Australians killed there during World War One.

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Members of 3rd/4th County of London Yeomanry (Sharpshooters) enjoy a game of cricket, 1944. NAM 1975-03-63-18-163

One of England's most famous test cricket grounds was used as a military hospital during World War One. The pavilion at Trent Bridge in Nottingham was taken over by the Army and used until 1919.

The home of Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club, the ground was also used as the British Army's central mail-sorting office during World War Two (1939-45). More recently, the old ground witnessed England's thrilling victory over Australia in the fourth test of the 2005 Ashes.

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Test Match Special's Brian Johnston won the Military Cross (MC) during World War Two. In 1939 he joined the 2nd Battalion, Grenadier Guards, and served as Transport Officer and later Technical Adjutant. He went on to fight in Normandy, witnessed the liberation of a concentration camp and was awarded the MC for his bravery and leadership. During his service he also found time to organise cricket matches between the 1st and 2nd Battalions.

Immediately after VE Day in 1945 he wrote an urgent letter to his mother from Germany, 'Could you send a parcel sometime containing: Wicket-keeping gloves, three cricket shirts, three pairs white socks...etc.' That summer he quickly organised cricket matches between the Guards Battalions at Siegburg and even taught the bemused Germans how to prepare a decent grass pitch! Brian Johnston later embarked on a highly successful broadcasting career. Known to millions of cricket fans around the world as 'Johnners', he was for many years the voice of cricket on BBC television and radio.

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An Australian Services XI played an unofficial series against a near full-strength England test team, including Wally Hammond, Les Ames and Len Hutton, in 1945-46. Known as 'The Victory Tests', games took place at Lord's, Old Trafford and Brammal Lane. The five tests were attended by over 350,000 cricket-starved civilians and service personnel. The series ended with two wins for each side and one draw. Australia were captained by Lindsay Hasset, then a sergeant-major in the Australian Army. The main Australian strike bowler was Graham Williams. He had been released from a German POW camp a few weeks before the series started, and played at 31kg (68lb) below his pre-war playing weight. In between overs he drank glasses of water and glucose to keep his energy up.