A wrecked carriage and the crumpled remains of the bridge following the Tangiwai disaster in 1953.
A wrecked carriage and the crumpled remains of the bridge following the Tangiwai disaster in 1953.
65 years on and it remains one of the more heartbreaking tales of New Zealand sport.
The bare bones of the story are that South Africa won the toss ahead of the second cricket test on Christmas Eve 1953, and made 271.
New Zealand, battered by the hostility of Neil Adcock on a treacherous pitch, were 57 for five, but chiefly through the courage of Bert Sutcliffe, reached 187.
South Africa were shot out for 148 but New Zealand, requiring 233, were rolled for 100.
That's the numbers of the test. But this is one match where numbers are rendered largely irrelevant.
New Zealand was in shock from the Tangiwai train disaster on Christmas Eve. Among the 151 people who died was 21-year-old fast bowler Bob Blair's fiancee Nerissa Love.
A distraught Blair was told the news by telegram and as New Zealand began their reply - after a day's break on Christmas Day - he remained at the team hotel before insisting he "wanted to join his mates" as the Adcock-led carnage had New Zealand's dressing room resembling an emergency ward.
Several batsmen were clattered. Sutcliffe was struck a brutal blow on the head and retired bloodied, only to return later with a white towel wrapped around his head.
"Bert had a lump the size of my fist behind his left ear," 12th man Eric Dempster recalled in Richard Boock's book The Last Everyday Hero. "But they took x-rays and couldn't find any fracture so dressed his torn ear-lobe and sent us back to the ground.
Bob Blair, middle, during a test for New Zealand.
"We were met there by [manager] Jack Kerr and [captain] Geoff Rabone. 'How are we going,' asked Bert. 'Not very well,' came the reply. 'Right ho then, I'll bat again,' Bert said - 'just bring me a double whisky.' So someone rustled up a dram; Bert swallowed it, padded up and went out and batted like a bloody champion."
He launched a defiant assault on the South African bowlers but when the ninth wicket fell the players headed for the pavilion, assuming the innings over. After all, Blair would not be batting.
However - and players swore this is not stuff of imagination - the 23,000 Boxing Day crowd fell silent as Blair emerged from the pavilion, fumbling with his gloves, tears in his eyes.
Sutcliffe, who was 29, walked over to the younger man, put an arm around his shoulder and told him: "Come on son. This is no place for you. Let's swing the bat and get the hell out of here."
In one over from the outstanding offspinner Hugh Tayfield, Sutcliffe clouted three sixes as the crowd - aware of the tragic circumstances - roared.
When Blair swung Tayfield high over the mid-wicket boundary the ground erupted.
The pair added 33 in just eight balls before the game carried on to its inevitable conclusion.
Sutcliffe's legend was already growing. In 42 tests over 18 years, he averaged 40.1 and will always sit among the country's finest batsmen.
Blair went on to take 43 wickets in 19 tests spread over 11 years. For Wellington he was formidably difficult over a 14-season career, especially at the Basin Reserve, and in 119 first-class games took 537 wickets at 18 runs apiece.
Talk to the New Zealand players years later and they'd still get emotional. Eyes would glisten, or look off into the distance reliving the events of that awful Boxing Day 65 years ago.
"It hurt at the time, it hurt a lot," Blair told the Dominion Post in 2013.
"I have a thought every Christmas... It always comes up, it will never go away. It is something you have to live with."
The final word goes to the Rand Daily Mail, which wrote: "It is not the result of the match that will be best remembered when men come together to talk about cricket.
"They will speak of a match that was as much worth watching as it was worth playing, a match the New Zealanders decided must go on.
"And if the rest of the world still wonders what it is all about, the only possible answer is that, if men are going to play, they can do a lot worse than play cricket."
