87 Days Until The Ashes Begin…

87 is known as the “Devil’s Number” in Australian cricket as it is thirteen shy of a hundred, so it seems apt that with 87 days to go until the Ashes begins in Brisbane on 25th November, we look today at Australian batsmen who have fallen on this dreaded number in our Ashes 100-1 countdown.

Interestingly, research conducted in Australia suggests that the belief that 87 is an unlucky number where cricket is concerned is a bit of a fallacy, as batsmen have got out more often on the surrounding numbers. But try telling that to Clem Hill. Of the five Australian scores of 87 in Ashes encounters (see table below), Hill has two of them. When you factor in that Hill also fell five times in the nervous nineties in Ashes battles – including for 98 and 97 in the same match at Adelaide in 1902, then Hill could have justifiably considered himself an unlucky batsmen.

The English equivalent of 87 is 111 or ‘Nelson’; although why anyone would consider getting out for 111 bad luck is another thing. Nelson is apparently thought to refer to Lord Nelson’s lost eye, arm and leg (although of course, Nelson never lost a leg) and was popularised by the late umpire David Shepherd, who used to raise a leg whenever the score was on Nelson, or double nelson (222), triple nelson (333) etc.