Alec Bedser, Doug Wright all stayed, but the young opener David Sheppard was replaced by veteran Cyril Washbrook and Godfrey Evans returned as wicket-keeper. Apart from Hutton, Washbrook, Compton and Simpson the batsmen were not in fine form. Dewes was chosen after he had made a gritty 117 against Queensland in the last tour match before the Test. The reserve wicket-keeper Arthur McIntyre was in the team for his batting and as Brown's Cows were desperately short of good fielders and McIntyre had a good throwing arm. While the crowd was waiting for the captains to come out and toss a dapper little man came out and inspected the pitch and he passed by the spectators completely unnoticed. It was the Test selector Sir Donald Bradman, such is fame. Keith Miller had recently made a slow 201 not out against Queensland on the flat Woolloongabba pitch and predicted that the Test would be "the dullest in history". Lindsay Hassett won the toss (as he would 9 times out of 10 in Ashes Tests) and although the Woolloongabba Ground had a reputation as "result" wicket it looked plumb and he batted without hesitation. Australia – First Innings Seldom has an England cricket team gone into the field with the odds greater against them than did the side under Freddie Brown's command at Brisbane on the first day of December 1950. The tour had up to that date been one long succession of inglorious displays that had riled the critics without exception...it was no exaggeration to state that before the game began not one man in the crowd of 13,000 was prepared for the shocks that followed. John Kay Brown called his team together the night before the Test began. His first words were "Chaps, you have got to get stuck into this with me. I have not lost faith. We can win if we go out there to-morrow and get stuck right into it." He told them that he knew they had not produced their English form. He told them that their batting, bowling, fielding and catching were too often just too bad to be true. Chosen, as they were, to represent their country, they obviously could do better. Brown's told them just what he thought of everything. He finished by saying that if they went on to the field on the morrow with confidence in themselves, they could do the