He was widely regarded by his contemporaries as Australia's finest ever wicket-keeper and one of the best in Test history,[1] with an understated style, an ability to anticipate the flight, length and spin of the ball and an efficient stumping technique.

Following the Second World War and the retirement or unavailability of other candidates, he was finally given an opportunity to play Test cricket, making his debut against New Zealand in 1946 aged 30.

[2][3] Often the matches would stretch past the daylight hours, and the brothers would play inside the house after moving the furniture to create some open space.

[3][4] He did not get a chance to display his batting prowess as the Bodyline spearhead Harold Larwood rattled him with a series of deliveries aimed at the throat,[4][6] before bowling him for two.

Tallon distinguished himself with his tidy keeping to the express pace bowling of Eddie Gilbert, whose suspect action and indigenous heritage were later the subject of controversy.

[7] In his second first-class match in the 1934–35 season, and his fourth overall,[7] he confirmed his batting ability with 58 and 86 against the South Australian bowling attack led by Clarrie Grimmett, the world's leading leg spinner at the time,[3] but was unable to prevent an eight-wicket defeat.

[14] New South Wales' Bert Oldfield was the incumbent wicket-keeper and had no plans to retire, while Victoria's Ben Barnett had been the reserve keeper on the 1934 tour of England.

With opener Jack Fingleton also injured, Australia were down to nine men and fell to the heaviest defeat in Test history (an innings and 579 runs) and the series was drawn.

Tallon made eight dismissals in the opening match of the Sheffield Shield campaign against New South Wales, but the visitors hung on for a draw with one wicket in hand.

[25] Walker had joined the Royal Australian Air Force as a gunner and was killed in a duel with Nazi fighter pilots over Soltau in Germany.

[25] This left Tallon as the front-runner, but there was a possibility that the selectors would opt for generational change and install a more youthful keeper like Gil Langley or Ron Saggers with an eye to the future.

[25] With the pressure of selection on his head,[25] Tallon made eight dismissals in the first match after the resumption of cricket,[7] against New South Wales in Brisbane, including three stumpings and three catches from the leg spin of Colin McCool, a future Test teammate.

Bradman introduced McCool and Compton misjudged a cut shot which went wide of Tallon and struck Johnson, fielding at slip, in the chest.

[30] According to Roland Perry, it was "an acrobatic feat that would put any trapeze artist in the shade, taking one of the most brilliant catches in Test history".

[36] Later in the match Tallon missed a vital stumping off the England wicketkeeper Godfrey Evans, who stayed put for 95 minutes without making a run.

[7] Tallon started the next season by taking five catches and scoring 41 in the second innings and Queensland scraped home to beat New South Wales by two wickets.

[38] Having spent the majority of his life in sunny Queensland and growing up in tropical Bundaberg, the cold English climate initially caught Tallon off guard.

[40] Early in the tour, Tallon struck an unbeaten 17 on a damp pitch in a low-scoring match as Australia defeated Yorkshire by four wickets.

[41][42] Tallon had difficulty with the English conditions early in the season as he sustained a bruised right finger when he lost sight of a Ray Lindwall bouncer on a misty morning during a tour match against Surrey at The Oval and was hit as he put hand over his face for protection, with the ball running away for four byes.

[7][43] The teams played out a draw in the third match at Manchester, where Tallon dismissed George Emmett from the bowling of Ray Lindwall with a diving one-handed catch.

[7] When the last match of the tour against Scotland in Aberdeen became safe, with Australia in an unassailable position, Bradman allowed Tallon to dispense with his wicket-keeping pads and try his luck at bowling leg spin.

[53] Tallon never bowled in his Test career and only rarely in first-class cricket, where he delivered 301 balls, the approximate workload of a specialist bowler in one match.

[7] The Australian team strategy of primarily depending on pace bowling saw Tallon make 12 catches and no stumpings during the Tests;[27] however, Bradman rested his lead pace bowlers Miller and Lindwall during the tour games to save energy for the Tests and allowed the spinners do more work,[54] so that overall Tallon took 29 catches and 14 stumpings for the tour.

[7] Tallon was selected for a brief tour of New Zealand at the end of the season with an Australian Second XI led by Bill Brown,[58][59] and scored 116 in an unofficial Test in Dunedin.

[61] Tallon missed selection during the 1951–52 season due his increasingly error-prone glovework and a combination of health reasons including stomach ulcers and deafness.

[7] In any case, Tallon had secretly been barred from selection by the Australian Board of Control for making unauthorised comments in the media; this fact was not revealed for half a century.

[7] His omission angered Queensland fans, who relentlessly heckled the Australians during the First Test against the tourists in Brisbane,[63] making fun of the mistakes made by Tallon's replacement Gil Langley in particular.

Modern Australian glovemen such as Rod Marsh and Ian Healy, both of whom held the Test world record for dismissals,[66] averaged closer to two.

[67][68] English wicket-keepers from two decades after World War II such as Godfrey Evans and Jim Parks scored two Test centuries apiece and averaged substantially more than Tallon.

[71] He had a particularly smooth and graceful catching technique that left his hands undamaged from the ball's impact, the injury in England in 1948 being a notable exception that proved the rule.