IT WILL be 50 years to the day next Thursday since the start of the match that produced the greatest of all individual cricketing deeds. It imprinted itself indelibly on the mind of this particular cricket-mad 11-year-old and of countless others whose parents had invested in a television for the first time for the Queen’s Coronation three years before.

Jim Laker’s 19 wickets against Australia in the Old Trafford Test of 1956 had the sort of impact on English youth then as Andrew Flintoff’s in the Edgbaston Test last summer and that of Ian Botham at Headingley in 1981.

As a sporting achievement it was a freak, the cricketing equivalent of Foinavon’s victory in the Grand National, Bob Beamon’s long jump record in the 1968 Olympic Games, or Tiger Woods’s first victory in the Masters, 12 strokes clear of all the others.

It was a statistical oddity as opposed to an isolated performance by an ordinary bowler because Laker was an off spinner with all the skills, especially devastating on English pitches in the days when they were still left uncovered, even overnight, when it rained.

What shows his 19 for 90 at its starkest is that his Surrey and England partner, Tony Lock, a devastating bowler on a turning pitch at any stage of his long career — but especially in his hostile prime in the midFifties — bowled 69 overs in the match for a single wicket on a pitch taking sharp spin.

Laker’s astonishing hold over the Australians that year had already been manifested in an analysis of all ten for 88 in their match against Surrey, but in the first innings of that game Lock had taken seven for 49. Those who said in 1964 that no one would emulate Fred Trueman by taking 300 wickets were not alive to the possibility that the international game would expand as it has. But it seems as safe now as it did five decades ago to suggest that 19 wickets will never again fall to one bowler in a Test match, even if he were to combine in one man the qualities of Laker, Warne and Muralitharan.

The Australians were suspicious of a conspiracy over the pitch before the game even started in sunny weather and their forebodings grew when Peter May won the toss. Richie Benaud and Ian Johnson had to bowl when the pitch was at its most solid and the fast attack of Ray Lindwall, Keith Miller and Ron Archer could not prevent Peter Richardson and Colin Cowdrey, opening the batting in that season of selectorial initiatives, sharing a partnership of 174.

David Sheppard, returning in place of Doug Insole (while Alan Oakman retained his place because of an injury to Tom Graveney) then belied his lack of match practice by scoring 113 and when Australia started their first innings at 2.30 on the second afternoon they faced a total of 459 compiled at a modern Test-match tempo.

From the start, however, the pitch, which had been treated with red marl earlier in the season, had been the talking point. George Duckworth, the former Lancashire and England wicketkeeper, invited to comment on BBC Radio, was immediately tackled on the subject by Rex Alston.

“I can’t walk a yard on the ground without somebody wanting to know what’s wrong with this Old Trafford wicket,” Duckworth responded. “170 for none. Nothing much wrong with the wicket at the moment. I wouldn’t want to be a pace bowler on there, but spin bowlers, I think, should get something out of it in a day or two.”

This was classic British understatement. Laker and Lock were in harness by 3.10pm. Half an hour later they changed ends, Laker switching to the Stretford End, from which he was to take all his wickets. Nothing happened for 15 minutes before Colin McDonald was caught at leg slip by the predatory Lock. Eighty minutes later, inclusive of the 20-minute tea interval, Australia were bowled out for 84: Laker nine for 37, Lock one for 37.

Richie Benaud has confirmed the truth of what happened then in the Australia dressing-room. Johnson, the captain, gave his team a rousing pep talk, ending with the confident assertion that Australia could still save the game. Keith Miller looked up from the corner of the room where he had more than half an eye on the Sporting Life and said: “6-4 we don’t.”

It was an underestimate. Australia, having got to 53 by the close on the Friday with nine second-innings wickets in hand, had any amount of help, in theory at least, from traditional Manchester rain. Only one more wicket, Jim Burke’s, fell in 45 minutes of play on Saturday and 19.2 overs on Monday. When play started at 12.45pm on the last day, July 31, they were 84 for two, but once the sun came out the speed of the turn achieved by Laker was too much for them to handle.