This article is taken from the May 2023 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10.

On 7 May 2003, Robert Pires and Jermaine Pennant each scored a hat-trick as Arsenal beat Southampton 6-1 and embarked on a streak that earned them the nickname of ‘The Invincibles’. The 49-match unbeaten run that started 20 years ago brought Arsenal’s thirteenth league title (they have not — yet — won it since) but it was not quite perfect. When Preston North End had an undefeated league season in 1888-89, the only other top-flight English = side to do so, they also won the FA Cup. Arsenal’s Invincibles went out of three cup competitions.

Full invincibility is hard. Celtic were unbeaten in 47 league and cup games when they won the Scottish treble in 2016-17 but lost three times in Europe. Juventus won Serie A without defeat in 2011-12 but lost in the Coppa Italia  to Napoli. Surrey, flawless county cricket champions in 1999, still lost eleven one-day matches.

Bradman, who made his Test debut in 1928, had declared his desire not to lose a game on his final tour

True Invincibles include the 1972 Miami Dolphins, who won seventeen in a row from week one to Super Bowl, and the 1974 British and Irish Lions, who won 21 straight matches on their rugby tour of South Africa before drawing their last. They were denied perfection by a referee who blew the final whistle four minutes early with the Lions on the Springboks’ line. “Look boys, I have to live here,” he told them.

And then there are Don Bradman’s Invincibles of 1948, the Australia cricket team who came to Britain 75 years ago and left unbeaten in 34 matches. It was a gruelling schedule — they played cricket on 112 of the 144 days they were here — but an emphatically successful one. Of their 25 wins, 17 were by an innings, and two by ten wickets, and each Australian wicket taken by their hosts came at a cost of 50 runs.

Even the finest Aussie touring sides have slipped somewhere. Allan Border’s 1989 side, so mighty in the Tests, were caught cold at Worcester; Kent chased 354 to beat Ian Chappell’s 1975 tourists; and Warwick Armstrong’s near-flawless 1921 side somehow lost in Eastbourne after dismissing Archie MacLaren’s ageing amateurs for 43. Though rain ensured Bradman’s boys wouldn’t win every match, they only once came close to losing.

They arrived at Tilbury on 16 April 1948 bearing 17,000 food parcels, a gift for their hosts, who would face rationing for another six years. That was as far as charity went: Bradman, who made his Test debut in 1928, had declared his desire not to lose a game on his final tour. His previous visit, in 1938, ended with Bradman breaking his ankle and England making 900 at the Oval. There was unfinished business.

His squad were young but highly talented. Five would be named in Australia’s team of the twentieth century: Bradman, the opener Arthur Morris, two fast-bowling all-rounders in Keith Miller and Ray Lindwall and the teenage prodigy Neil Harvey, the only Invincible still with us. Three others would be named among Wisden’s five cricketers of the year.

They won seven of the first eight games by an innings. The traditional opener at Worcester was cold and drizzly but still attracted a crowd of 32,000. Bradman made 107, the first of eleven centuries on tour. “Bradman goes cheaply” a local paper said: he’d begun his three previous Ashes tours there with a double hundred. At Leicester, Miller made 202.

The knockout blow came at the Oval: England all out for 52

Then came the banana skin. Set just 60 to win a wet match at Bradford, the Australians slipped to 31 for six before Harvey won the game with a six. Four heavy victories followed, none more so than at Southend where they made 721 runs in a day. Miller, bored, let himself be bowled first ball.

England’s batting was strong on paper — Hutton, Washbrook, Edrich, Compton — but they lost the Test series 4-0, with Australia helped by a rule change allowing a new ball after 55 overs. Rain in Manchester meant the third Test was drawn with Australia 92 for one chasing 316, but any delusions of England being denied fell apart after Headingley where Australia chased 404 in six hours: Bradman 173, Morris 182. “English cricket pride went reeling round the ring,” said Wisden.

The knockout blow came at the Oval: England all out for 52. Yet the match is best remembered for Bradman’s failure. He had arrived in England with a Test average of 103 and in his final innings needed only four runs to retire with a perfect average of 100. After being cheered to the wicket, Bradman was bowled second ball by Eric Hollies’s googly.

“Was his eye a little misted at his reception?” John Arlott wondered. As Bradman returned to the pavilion, he was met by Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, who with supreme self-confidence and no awareness told the greatest batsman in history how he should have played it.

Seven more matches remained on the tour and Bradman made four more centuries to show Monty that his judgement hadn’t completely gone. The Invincibles finished with two matches in Scotland and a visit to Balmoral where Miller, perhaps hoping for a farewell maiden, flirted with Princess Margaret. A year later, Bradman was back to get a knighthood.

And so a full stop came to a career full of exclamation marks. “A miracle has been removed from among us,” wrote RC Robertson-Glasgow. “So must ancient Italy have felt when she heard of the death of Hannibal.”But the general couldn’t have done it without his elephants. “All-round ability, versatility and brilliance allied to bulldog courage” is how Bradman described his Invincibles. “You often get some ofthese things, to get the lot is a rarity.”