Memories of Bellerive Oval, Hobart

Posted by Tony Hutton

Yesterday's announcement that the fifth match of the current Ashes series in Australia will now be played at the Bellerive Oval, Hobart, Tasmania brought back memories of my visit there on a previous England tour in 1994/95. The move from Perth has been brought about by the strict covid rules applied by the Western Australian government. Test matches have previously been played in Hobart but never before by England. This has been a controversial decision to select the small ground, which only has a  20,000 capacity, over the much bigger stadiums of Melbourne and Sydney, but has been welcomed by the television companies as the game will be a day/night affair, which helps get a bigger audience in the UK and elsewhere.

Bellerive Oval, Hobart 1994

The game I saw back in November 1994 was a warm up game between an Australian XI and an England XI, immediately before the first test in Brisbane. As now England were underdogs with a few controversial selections in the touring party. The pace bowling looked rather thin with the inexperienced Darren Gough, Martin McCague, an Irishman brought up in Australia, and Joey Benjamin of Surrey playing in this game. The spinner was Phil Tufnell and wicket keeper Steven Rhodes of Worcestershire.

River estuary view at Bellerive Oval.

The strength of the England side was in the batting line up of Atherton the captain, Stewart, Thorpe, Gooch, Crawley and all rounder Craig White. The Australian XI also has a strong batting side with Hayden, Blewett, Langer, Damien Martyn the captain, Ricky Ponting a local boy, then only 19 years old, and Stuart Law. Two other local Tasmanians in the side were wicket keeper Atkinson and spinner Robertson, together with the pace bowlers Merv Hughes, Paul Reiffel and Jo Angel.

Think the grassy bank may have now disappeared.

The attractive setting of the ground, overlooking the Derwent River estuary was matched by the hospitality provided to the handful of England followers who were welcomed into the members' enclosure. Fortunately some time before the Barmy Army took centre stage. Australia made a poor start losing Hayden and Langer early on and then Blewett with the total on 99-3. However Martyn and the young local boy Ponting came together to put on a partnership of 133. Ponting had already impressed with 82 in the first game of the tour at Lilac Hill.

Play in progress in 1994.

Martyn, who later had a brief but memorable time at Yorkshire, went on to a century, ably supported by Ponting with 71, Law with 68 and Atkinson with 51 not out, before the home side declared after an hour of day two with an impressive total of 386-7. The England bowling figures did not look good with the first test rapidly approaching. Gough had 1-101, McCague 3-115 and Tufnell 1-62. The batting was not much better only Gooch and Rhodes with fifties impressing as the three Australian pacemen shared the wickets.

Another view from 1994.

England all out for 209 were invited to follow on after day three was almost completely lost to rain. They did manage a much better performance in the second innings and were able to bat out for a comfortable draw. Alec Stewart made an impressive century and Atherton (49) and Thorpe (48 not out) also looked in good form as the game finished with a score of 207-1.

This game and all the other warm up games in Perth, Adelaide, Canberra and Newcastle did not seem to prepare England very well for the upcoming first test in Brisbane, with yet another predictable home victory. Michael Slater set the tone for the series with a four off the first ball from De Freitas and went on to score 176. Together with a century from Mark Waugh this enabled Australia to total 426. In a game very similar to the one that finished today McDermott bowled England out cheaply in the first innings and Shane Warne's bowling destroyed them in the second with 8-71.