Bill Ponsford, died at Kyneton, Victoria, on April 6, 1991; at 90, he was Australia's oldest living Test cricketer and the sole survivor of HL Collins's 1926 team in England. He made 162 in his second first-class game, for Victoria against Tasmania at Launceston in February 1922, but did not play for the state again until selected against the same opposition a year later in Melbourne. Then, in what was only his fourth innings, he created a sensation by hitting 429 in 477 minutes: it was the world's highest first-class score until he bettered it five years later. Furthermore, Victoria's 1059 was the first four-figure total in any first-class match, and Ponsford, who was captaining the side, stayed until he made the 1000th run himself, having gone in at 200 for three. He was soon to prove that his 429 was something more than money for old rope against moderate bowling, as some would have it. The previous record-holder, AC MacLaren, had protested peevishly at the status of the match. Four centuries for Victoria in 1923-24, including 248 out of 456 with Edgar Mayne for the first wicket against Queensland - still an Australian record - sounded a warning note of what was in store for bowlers. The next season he played in all five Tests against England and scored 110 and 128 in the first two, an unprecedented achievement. His tour of England in 1926 was less successful, but early in December a veritable torrent of runs began to flow from his bat. Never before had anyone strung together such a series of colossal scores as Ponsford did in 1926-27 and 1927-28. In 1926-27, his innings were 214 and 54, 151, 352, 108 and 84, 12 and 116, 131 and 7, producing an aggregate of 1229 runs at 122.90; in 1927-28 he scored 133, 437, 202 and 38, 336, 6 and 2, and 63 - an aggregate of 1217 at 152.12. His 336 against South Australia in January 1928 was his eleventh first-class hundred in consecutive matches in Australia.