The
diminutive Charles Macartney was a slow left-arm bowler before he developed
into an awesome strokeplayer. Jack Fingleton explained that Macartney was known
as ‘Governor General’ because of the “manner in which he lorded the cricket
field, entering it like one about to inspect the ranks, throwing challenges and
exuding domination, dismissing bowlers from the crease as an official G.G. would
dismiss footmen from his presence when their duty was done.”
In
his first tour of England in
1909, Macartney bagged eleven wickets for 85, including seven for 58 in the
first innings at Leeds, a venue he came to revel in, as did Bradman later,
helping Australia
win the Test. When he returned to England
in 1912 for the Triangular Test tournament, with South Africa as the third side, his
batting prowess had already come to the fore. He rattled up six first-class
hundreds, including a double century against Essex.
After
the War Macartney came into his own as a batsman. Neville Cardus observed, “He
was less courtly in his stroke-play than Trumper, whose masterful innings had a
certain effortless charm. Macartney, perfect of technique, none the less used
his bat with an unmistakable pugnacity. Sir Donald Bradman annihilated all
bowlers as though he was just performing the day’s work with a deadly
efficiency. Macartney slaughtered bowling quite rapaciously. If he was obliged
to bat through a maiden over he looked annoyed with himself at the end of it;
and he would gnaw his glove. His forearms were formidably strong, his chin was
aggressive and his eyes perpetually alive. They looked you in the face; they
looked the best bowlers in the world in the face. Macartney employed a
defensive stroke as a last resort. Nothing could daunt him. Before the start of
a Lord’s Test match he came down to breakfast in a London hotel, looking
through the window at the June sunshine and said:- ‘Lovely day, Cripes, I feel
sorry for any poor cove who’s got to bowl at me today’.”
It
was at Sydney that Macartney made his highest
Test score of 170 against England
in 1920-21, when a young boy named Don Bradman was an avid spectator. Soon
thereafter in the English summer of 1921, his 115 helped Warwick Armstrong’s
famous side win the Leeds Test. But his most enthralling, and highest, innings
came against Nottinghamshire during that tour when he crashed 345 in less than
four hours with 47 fours and 4 sixes. It was the highest score for any
Australian batsman touring England, and the maximum runs scored in a day
anywhere until Brian Lara scored 390 on his way to a record-shattering 501 not
out for Warwickshire against Durham at Birmingham in 1994.
When
Macartney visted Leeds again during his fourth tour of England in
1926, he scored another memorable century. Ken Piesse described that brilliant
innings: “Although the wicket was damp from the heavy overnight rain, the sun
had not come out, saving the Australians from the dreaded ‘sticky’. Without the
sunshine, (Arthur) Carr’s bowlers were not able to make the ball jump or twist,
making batting a not-so-difficult duty.” Nevertheless, Maurice Tate had Warren
Bardsley, captain in the absence of Herbie Collins, caught by Herbert Sutcliffe
with the scoreboard still blank. Macartney walked in, and being the kind of
player he was, tended to offer an early chance. And so it turned out. When he
was on 2, Macartney flashed at Maurice Tate’s out-swinger, but Carr dropped him
at third slip.
From
then on there was no stopping Macartney. He wrote in his book My Cricketing Days: “I made up my mind
to attack and kept on attacking. I felt like it and as a result I went for
everything.” He reached his century before lunch, emulating the singular feat
of Trumper, which was replicated by Bradman! At the interval Macartney was on
112, his partner Bill Woodfull 40, and Australia had 153 on the board.
Macartney ultimately holed out to deep mid-off for 151, having cracked 21
boundaries in just 172 minutes. His second-wicket stand of 235 with Woodfull
was a record.
That was his last Test
series, in which he scored 3 hundreds, the others being 133 not out at Lord’s
and 109 at Manchester.
He passed on the baton to a lad named Donald George Bradman, who was to make his
appearance in the very next rubber that Australia played. In 35 Tests
Macartney aggregated 2131 runs at an average of 41.78. Peter Hartland noted,
“For Macartney dominating the bowler was just as important as making a big
score, and he loved to whip straight balls through the leg side. In many ways
he was the nearest of old-timers to Vivian Richards.”
(Author Indra Vikram Singh
can be contacted on email singh_iv@hotmail.com).