Role
A left-arm medium-pace seamer, Toshack was a member of Bradman's first-choice team and he played in the first four Tests before being struck down by a persistent knee injury. Toshack contained the English batsmen using leg theory in between the new ball bursts of Miller and Lindwall, usually bowling second change after Miller, Lindwall and Johnston. The English press decried Toshack's style of bowling as negative, but Jack Fingleton said that "he is generally so close to the stumps that nearly every ball has to be played".
During the Tests, Toshack took 11 wickets at 33.09; his most notable performance was his 5/40 in the second innings of the Second Test at Lord's. Of the four frontline pacemen, Toshack had the second best economy rate, although with his leg stump bowling, he also had a strike rate of 94.45, while the other three fast bowlers all had strike rates below 70. It was a similar tale in the first-class statistics, with the second best economy among the seven frontline bowlers, but the worst strike rate. For the entire tour, Toshack took 50 wickets at 21.12 with four five-wicket innings hauls, including a best of 7/81 against Yorkshire at Bramall Lane. He also took 6/51 in the first innings of the match against the Marylebone Cricket Club, which was almost entirely represented by English Test cricketers. Toshack took two catches on tour, none of them in the Tests.
An inept batsman with an average of 5.78 in his first-class career, Toshack managed a Test average of 51.00 on the 1948 tour after being dismissed only once, behind only Arthur Morris, Sid Barnes, Bradman and Neil Harvey. The unbeaten 20 he managed in the Lord's Test was his best first-class score, made in a freewheeling tenth-wicket stand with Johnston.
During the tour, Toshack had few opportunities with the bat, invariably being placed at either No. 10 and No. 11 in the order alongside Johnston, another tailender with little batting ability.N- Neither player ever passed 30 in their career, and they were the only two players who failed to make a half-century during the tour. As Australia's other specialist bowlers were Lindwall, McCool, Johnson and Doug Ring, all of whom made centuries and more than 18 fifties each during their first-class career, Toshack and Johnston were invariably rooted at the bottom of the order. As Australia often won by an innings, and declared in the first innings many times due to their batting strength, Toshack only had 12 innings in his 15 first-class fixtures, never batted in the second innings, and scored 78 runs at 8.66. Of the 78 runs, 51 came from four Test innings in Toshack's four Tests.
Due to the fragility of his knee, Toshack was used sparingly in the tour games, playing in only 11 of the 29 non-Test matches on the tour, the least of any player. Toshack was unable to play in the last nine matches of the tour, having injured himself in the second match against Lancashire.
Read more about this topic: Ernie Toshack With The Australian Cricket Team In England In 1948
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