Bill Brown With The Australian Cricket Team in England in 1948 - Later Tour Matches

Later Tour Matches

Seven matches remained on Bradman's quest to go through a tour of England without defeat. Australia batted first against Kent and Brown top-scored with 106. After putting on 64 with Morris for the first wicket, he put on 104 each for the next two partnerships with Bradman and Harvey respectively, before falling at 3/272. Brown again batted slowly; he took 255 minutes to reach triple figures and was greeted by ironic clapping as he slowly accumulated runs while his partners attacked. Brown's dismissal triggered a collapse; Australia lost their last seven wickets for 89 to end at 361. Despite this, they completed another innings victory. In the next match against the Gentlemen of England, which was held at Lord's, Brown scored 120, featuring in a 180-run second wicket partnership with Bradman, as Australia amassed 5/610 and won by an innings. Former Australian Test opener and batting partner Jack Fingleton said "Brown has always looked the class batsman that he is when playing at Lord's, and this superb century, so different in conception and execution to the one at Canterbury, made one reflect what a grand opening batsman this series of Tests had done without". Fingleton made a duck in the next match but Australia nevertheless defeated Somerset by an innings and 374 runs. He then made 13 against the South of England in his last first-class match of the season. The match was washed out, but not before Brown took 4/16 from 4.1 overs in his only first-class bowling effort of the tour, cleaning up the tail.

Australia's biggest challenge in the post-Test tour matches was against the Leveson-Gower's XI. During the last Australian tour in 1938, the team was effectively a full-strength England outfit, but this time Bradman insisted only six England players from the season's Tests be allowed to compete. After his opponents had finalised their team, Bradman fielded a full-strength team, and Brown missed out. The match ended in a draw after multiple rain delays.

The tour ended with two non-first-class matches against Scotland. In the first match, Brown was rested as the Australians claimed an innings victory. In the second match, Brown scored 24 not out batting at No. 8 and took a wicket in the second innings as Australia ended the tour with another innings victory.