1978 New Zealand beats England in a cricket test for the first time

New Zealand suffered many defeats at the hands of English cricketers before finally winning its first test at Wellington’s Basin Reserve in February 1978. 

By early 2011 the two countries had met in 94 tests, with England winning 45. New Zealand had won just eight, with the remainder being drawn. Official cricketing contact with England began when the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) sent a team to New Zealand in the 1906–07 season. Founded in 1787, the MCC is a private members’ club based at Lord’s in London. It was the original governing body of cricket in England, and organised that country’s national teams until the 1970s.

Games against the MCC were regarded as unofficial tests, with visits here usually coming at the end of the more important Ashes tours of Australia. A New Zealand team first went to England in 1927. On this visit no tests were played – New Zealand was not considered good enough – and 12 of the 38 games were second-class fixtures. After New Zealand was granted test status in the 1929–30 season, it played England in 19 of its first 22 tests over the following 21 years.

The lowest innings total ever made in a test match is unfortunately New Zealand’s record. The 26 runs scored against the 1955 English tourists at Eden Park in Auckland perhaps confirmed why the MCC was reluctant to give New Zealand full test status.

Revenge was a long time coming, but for long-suffering New Zealand cricket fans the 1978 victory was sweet. Needing only 137 in their second innings to win, the English were all out for just 64. Richard Hadlee took 6 wickets for 26 runs and went on to become New Zealand’s greatest wicket-taker in tests.

This first victory against England – at the 48th attempt – was a tribute to perseverance, and it was enthusiastically welcomed as proof that New Zealand could at last compete with our former colonial masters, the inventors of the game. The three-match series was drawn 1–1.