Peter May captained the English cricket team in Australia in 1958–59, playing as England in the 1958–59 Ashes series against the Australians and as the MCC in their other matches on the tour.
The reasons for their failure were manifold; the captain was too defensive; injuries affected their best players; others were too young and inexperienced such as Arthur Milton, Raman Subba Row, Ted Dexter, Roy Swetman and John Mortimore, or at the end of their career; Godfrey Evans, Trevor Bailey, Jim Laker, Willie Watson and Frank Tyson.
Swanton noted It was a tour which saw all sorts of perverse happenings – from an injury list that never stopped (and culminated in only 12 out of 18 being fit to fly to New Zealand), to the dis-satisfaction with umpiring and bowlers' actions that so undermined morale.
He had led the 1950–51 touring side, which had been dismissed as the weakest ever sent to Australia, and his refusal to accept defeat in the face of great odds had won him admiration from the Australian public.
Brown had a more robust and combative style than May and wanted to complain officially about what the English party perceived as the throwing actions of the Australian bowlers, which might have resulted in a Bodyline type crisis.
The assistant-manager was Desmond Eagar, the captain of Hampshire in 1946–57, who built up the attacking team that would win the County Championship in 1961 and was a noted cricket historian.
He was widely regarded as the best post-war batsman England produced, tall, strong and disciplined with a near-perfect technique, a straight bat and a complete range of strokes.
[11] As a captain he was a strict team disciplinarian who expected high standards, he was ruthless when the occasion demanded, but could be inflexible and unimaginative and lacked the charisma of a natural leader.
The slightly built left-handed Peter Richardson looked set for a long career for England; he had a Test average of 46.20 at the start of the series and had made centuries against Australia, South Africa, the West Indies and New Zealand.
[14] He had been the amateur captain of Worcestershire and wanted to become a professional player for Kent under Colin Cowdrey, but his old county refused to release him from his contract and he had to sit out the 1959 First Class cricket season while qualifying, and lost his England place.
England took four fast bowlers; Frank Tyson, Fred Trueman, Brian Statham and Peter Loader, which Swanton thought was one too many,[19] and the all-rounders Trevor Bailey and Ted Dexter.
[20] He possessed a text-book side-on action which generated great pace and menacing late swing which was coupled with the fitness and stamina to bowl a thousand overs a season.
Brian Statham was the "straight man" of the England fast bowling attack, running up the hill and into the wind while Tyson and Trueman let rip from the other end.
He maintained a nagging line and length, but "George" was regarded as an unlucky bowler, so many times did he beat the batsman only to see the ball miss the stumps by the thinnest of margins.
A fast-medium swing bowler with a wide range of pace and a nasty bouncer he took the first post war Test hat-trick in his 6/36 against the West Indies at Headingley in 1957.
A fast-medium swing bowler whose grudging accuracy mirrored his famously negative batting he could be very dangerous in the right conditions, taking 7/34 in 1953-54 and 7/44 in 1957 against the West Indies, but was mostly used for containment and failed on the tour.
Wardle was a real loss, a slow left arm bowler who could bowl Chinamen and reverse googlies and had been lethal in Australia and New Zealand in 1954–55 and South Africa in 1956-57.
Belatedly the MCC sent John Mortimore to Australia by plane, an off-spinning all-rounder who was later kept out of the England team by the similar, but superior, skills of Ray Illingworth and Fred Titmus.
He was chosen in part for his batting, having made centuries against the West Indies and India, but his loud and enthusiastic wicketkeeping was a joy to watch and considered by far the best in the world.
Fred Trueman was a good close field and Tony Lock was considered the greatest backward short leg in the world and one of the safest pair of hands in cricket.
The MCC team suffered from a long list of injuries that affected their ability to contest the Ashes series, particularly as they only had a 16-man squad because Johnny Wardle was not replaced when he was dropped.