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Sentimentality often runs rampant when the 1948 Australian tour of England is mentioned. Being the first team to tour England without a loss in any game and Sir Donald Bradman's last tour, Australians christened the team "The Invincibles". This is not to say that the feat of touring England without loss is in any way lessened. Nor that the feat was anything less than remarkable.
However, there are a lot of details that are conveniently forgotten when this tour is remembered. Small details are overlooked such as the fact that many young Englishmen did not survive World War II. Those who did were still eating rations and had been for almost a decade. England had also been almost completely gutted by the war. These were not ideal conditions for a country to field a dominant Test team.
England had peaked when they defeated Australia in the "Bodyline" series in 1932-33. By winning that series, England claimed first place in the Test cricket ratings with 1119 rating points. This was England's second highest rating in the history of Test cricket. Following that series, England's rating went into a prolonged decline.
By the time a fresh, fit and healthy team of Australians arrived in 1948 the English rating had dropped by 64 points to 1055 rating points.
During the same period, Australia's rating was constantly rising. After losing the Bodyline series, Australia's rating was 1101 points. By the 1948 tour of England, this had increased to 1166 points and they held first place in the ratings.
Moving forward to the present era, it is worth remembering that Test cricket is now played at a relatively frenetic pace. Modern teams compress what would have taken nearly a decade in the 1930s and 1940s into two or three years.
Australia had a rating of 1114 in October 1999 after they lost their Test series in Sri Lanka. Since that time Australia increased their rating to 1168 points. This is only two rating points more than the Invincibles held before their series against England in 1948.
The current West Indies are in the same sort of slump which England suffered leading up to the 1948 series against Bradman's Australians, the difference being in the reasons behind their slump.
The West Indies dominated the game through the 1980s and early 1990s. Their last victory of note was their defeat of Pakistan in the Carribean in May 1993 when their rating climbed to 1183 points. Since that time the West Indians have lost 133 points to start their series against Australia with 1050 ratings points. This is five rating points less than England in 1948.
Although 52 years separates the two series, the ratings of the two Australian sides are almost identical and both were showing an upward trend before their respective series. Both the England and West Indies teams were in a ratings slump and they also held almost identical ratings before their Test series.
Those who immediately think the West Indies do not compare with the 1948 English side should remember the Adelaide Test. When the pressure was eased slightly with Waugh and Lee out through injury then the West Indies looked like a different team. The fact that Australia has dominated them to the extent of making them look so ordinary in this series is a reflection of how good the Australians really are.
With similar trends and similar ratings the results of the two series that are separated by 52 years should be similar. The following shows the results of the 1948 tour compared to the 2000-01 tour:
Test The Invincibles Waugh's Australians
1st Test Australia by 8 wickets Australia by an innings & 125 runs
2nd Test Australia by 409 runs Australia by an innings & 27 runs
3rd Test Draw Australia by 5 wickets
4th Test Australia by 7 wickets Australia by 352 runs
5th Test Australia by an innings ??????
149 runs
What is clear from this is that the margin of the victories by these Australian Test teams is about the same. The obvious question from this is: "If Waugh's men defeat the West Indies in Sydney then does that make them the better team?"
Neil Harvey, himself a member of the Invincibles, suggested before Christmas that the current Australian team is nowhere near the Invincibles. Harvey has compared the batting orders and found the modern day Australians somewhat less than Bradman's batsmen in his estimation. Harvey also claimed the standard of batting in Test cricket has declined over the last twenty years with the rise of one-day cricket.
The drop in standards may well be true and Ian Healy has supported this view recently. It may not matter in the context of the West Indies tour as it is hard to imagine that anyone could beat them by larger margins than those being achieved at the moment.
Waugh's Australians can only decimate the opposition they are given. On the occasions over the last year when they have needed to dig deep - in Hobart against Pakistan and in Adelaide against the West Indies - then they have done so and won.
It is clear that there is never likely to be another Bradman and any comparison with his batting record is doomed. However, it is perhaps unfair to judge the current players who are yet to finish their careers against the remaining Invincibles that have done so. After all, how can Gilchrist's career, after only 13 Tests, be compared to any player who has had five or more years at the top and has then retired?
A better comparison of teams in different eras is the degree that each team dominates their contemporaries. The degree of domination is reflected in the team's rating points.
If Waugh's men win the fifth Test their rating will increase to 1204 points compared to the Invincibles rating of 1189 points after the 1948 tour. If the current Australians can maintain this level then they can claim to have dominated their contemporaries to a greater degree than the Invincibles dominated theirs.
However, once Bradman retired then Hassett's Australians continued to increase their rating for another three years before peaking at a record high by any team of 1228 points in 1951-52. It remains to be seen if Waugh's Australians can better that mark or maintain such a rating for a longer period than the Australians of the 1950s did.
