Frank Worrell…..stylish strokeplayer, first coloured captain of the West Indies. Excerpt from Indra Vikram Singh’s book ‘Don’s Century’

There is no parallel in world cricket to the saga of the four Ws – Worrell, Weekes and Walcott of the West Indies. These great Barbados batsmen were born, remarkably, within a radius of three miles in a span of 18 months. They made their Test debut in the same series against England in 1947-48, which the West Indies won 2-0, and all three were knighted at various stages.

Frank Worrell was a calm, stylish strokeplayer, left-arm medium-pace swing bowler, and first coloured captain of the West Indies, rated among the great leaders, a true statesman of the game. Of his highest Test score of 261 against England at Trent Bridge in 1950, 239 runs were scored in a day. England were handed a 3-1 drubbing on home turf. Indeed Worrell sculpted six of his nine Test hundreds off the English bowlers in five different series at home and away, once carrying his bat for an unbeaten 191.

Worrrell became the only batsman in first-class cricket to be associated in two partnerships of 500 or more, both unbroken for the fourth wicket representing Barbados against Trinidad. In 1943-44, at 19 years the youngest to score a triple century, an unbeaten 308, he put on 502 with John Goddard. Two seasons later, he raised 574 with Clyde Walcott.

Worrell was the odd man out among the three Ws in missing out on a Test average of 50. He came within touching distance, finishing at 49.48 per innings for his 3860 runs in 51 Tests.

  

The 1960-61 series in Australia, when Worrell took over the captaincy, was one of the most thrilling in history, not just for the first tied Test at Brisbane, but also for the competitiveness and wonderful spirit in which it was played. The West Indies lost 1-2, but were accorded a memorable farewell in an open motorcade. From here on, all series between Australia and the West Indies came to be played for the Frank Worrell Trophy.

In 1963 his team gave a 3-1 thrashing to England, finally ending the hegemony of the two founder members of the Imperial Cricket Conference. Worrell’s untimely death in 1967, just after a memorable post-retirement tour to India, some of which comprised delightful moments in the commentary box, came as a rude shock to cricket lovers all over the world.

(Author Indra Vikram Singh can be contacted on email singh_iv@hotmail.com).

Don’s Century

Published in India by Sporting Links

ISBN 978-81-901668-5-0

Fully illustrated

Paperback French Fold 11 x 8.5 x 0.4 inches

188 pages

Arthur Morris, classy left-handed opening batsman. Excerpt from Indra Vikram Singh’s book ‘Don’s Century’

It would be pertinent to discuss one more batsman of the Bradman era, his compatriot, the left-handed Arthur Morris, whom The Don chose in his all-time dream team to open with Barry Richards.

It was with Morris that Bradman put on 301 for the second wicket in the famous run-chase at Headingley in 1948. They got together after Lindsay Hassett fell at 57, and set up the magnificent victory, the first time that a side scored 400 in the fourth innings to win a Test. Morris made 182 before he was dismissed on the very threshold of the historic triumph.

The perceptive Bradman always had immense faith in Morris. A brilliant strokeplayer all round the wicket, Morris made a century in each innings on his first-class debut against Queensland at Sydney in 1940-41 as an 18-year-old. But he fared poorly on first appearance in Tests against Australia in 1946-47, managing only 2 runs at Brisbane, and 5 at Sydney.

Bradman, though, persisted with him and the youngster repaid his skipper’s faith in abundant measure. Morris delighted the crowds in the next two Tests. He scored 155 at Melbourne, and then a hundred in each innings - 122 and 124 not out - at Adelaide. It was, after all, a glorious initiation in top grade cricket.

Eight of Morris’ 12 Test hundreds came against England, three in the 1948 series, when he topped Australia’s averages with 87, having hit 696 runs; Bradman averaged 72.57 for his 508 runs. Morris scored Test hundreds in South Africa and the West Indies, and also against India at home.

In his 46 Tests he aggregated 3533 runs at an average of 46.48, with a top score of 206. Bradman probably wanted a classy left-handed strokeplayer to open his All-time XI, which is why he included Morris. Had the great man lived longer, he might have been tempted to consider Matthew Hayden, who only began his ascent to the pinnacle on the Indian tour of 2001 just after The Don passed away.

After a close look at Morris’ career, one can see Bradman’s point, even though many might still not agree. It takes quite a lot to bypass the claims of the likes of Grace, Trumper, Hobbs, Hutton and Gavaskar, even if they were all right-handers.

(Author Indra Vikram Singh can be contacted on email singh_iv@hotmail.com).

Don’s Century

Published in India by Sporting Links

ISBN 978-81-901668-5-0

Fully illustrated

Paperback French Fold 11 x 8.5 x 0.4 inches

188 pages

Neil Harvey, one of the most delightful left-handed batsmen. Excerpt from Indra Vikram Singh’s book ‘Don’s Century’

In Bradman’s penultimate Test series against India in 1947-48, a short-statured brilliant left-handed batsman, Neil Harvey, made his debut. At 19 years he became Australia’s youngest Test player as well as centurion. He went on to notch up the highest aggregate as well as centuries for the country - after Bradman, that is - 6149 runs (average 48.41) and 21 hundreds in 79 Tests. Statistics, though, neither interested him unduly, nor told his real tale.

Not surprisingly for a small man, Harvey was quick on his feet, at the crease as well as in the field. He would regularly skip down the wicket to the spinners, and these attributes made him a wonderful player on turning tracks. He was not loath to advance forward at times even to the pacemen. A terrific strokeplayer on the off-side, Harvey was not one to leave alone too many deliveries outside his off-stump. To short-pitched bowling, he employed the Bradman method of Bodyline vintage, of stepping away, allowing himself a free swing of his arms and smashing the ball through the covers.

Doubtlessly a joy to behold, Harvey was extremely swift between the wickets and in the covers. He prowled around a vast expanse of turf, darting to the ball and making lightning right-handed returns bang on top of the stumps. During the later stages he excelled in the slips. Neil Harvey was a thrilling sight on the field.

So abundantly talented was he, that he scored a century in his first club match, first outing for Victoria and second Test, a brilliant 153 at Melbourne. On the 1948 Invincibles tour, Harvey got his chance only in the fourth Test at Leeds after Sidney Barnes dropped out due to injury. The youngster promptly hit up a hundred on first appearance against England. With Australia reeling at 68 for three, Bradman having been dismissed for 33, Harvey and Miller launched a terrific counter-attack on the English bowling. Harvey scored 112, and never looked back thereafter.

Harvey’s best, though, came in two Test series against South Africa. In 1949-50 he hit up 660 runs at an average of 132, with 4 hundreds. He was even more prolific when the South Africans made a return visit three years later. Amassing 834 runs at an average of 92.66, Harvey again logged up four centuries, including his top Test score of 205 at Melbourne. Only Bradman had hit four hundreds in a series thrice. Clyde Walcott became the lone batsman to slam five tons in a rubber in 1954-55, a series in which Harvey too thrived. Herbert Sutcliffe and Sunil Gavaskar are the only other batsmen to score four hundreds in a series twice. Harvey’s aggregate of 834 in 1952-53 was the third-highest ever after Bradman’s 974 in 1930 and Hammond’s 905 in 1928-29. Australia’s Mark Taylor amassed 839 in the 1989 Ashes series.

When Frank “Typhoon” Tyson decimated Australia in 1954-55, Harvey was one batsman who stood up to the frightening pace. He scored a superb 162 at Brisbane, and then in the Sydney Test battled for four-and-a-half hours in adversity, grinding out a courageous and skillful 92, rated as one of his best knocks.

The tour to the Caribbean islands that followed would then have been a big relief. Harvey scored 650 runs at an average of 108.33, with 2 centuries and a double century as Australia continued their dominance of the West Indies.

Like Everton Weekes, Harvey was rarely at his best when facing England, barring the flying start in 1948 and the gutsy displays against Tyson. In 37 Tests over 15 years, he never scored more than one hundred in any of his eight series against the Old Enemy. As if to emphasise the point, Jim Laker handed him a pair in that famous Test at Old Trafford in 1956. Neil Harvey, nevertheless, was one of the most delightful left-handers the game has seen.

(Author Indra Vikram Singh can be contacted on email singh_iv@hotmail.com).

Don’s Century

Published in India by Sporting Links

ISBN 978-81-901668-5-0

Fully illustrated

Paperback French Fold 11 x 8.5 x 0.4 inches

188 pages

Len Hutton and Dennis Compton, great English batsmen either side of the Second World War. Excerpt from Indra Vikram Singh’s book ‘Don’s Century

Len Hutton

Dennis Compton

The last two great batsmen to make their Test debut before the Second World War were the Englishmen Len Hutton and Dennis Compton.

Hutton, the boy from Pudsey, Yorkshire, was in his own words, “an unashamed hero-worshipper of Jack Hobbs.” He wrote in his Fifty Years in Cricket: “My first meeting with Sir Jack literally left me tongue-tied. I gaped and no words came. I shudder to imagine what he must have thought of me.”

As a lad of fourteen, Hutton had the privilege of watching Don Bradman score 300 in a day in the Headingley Test of 1930. Never could he have dreamt at the time that eight years later he would go on to surpass that Ashes high of 334 by Bradman and Hammond’s record Test score of 336 not out. Hutton notched up 364 at the Oval, a mark that was to remain for two decades until Gary Sobers went one better.

That monumental score so early in his career was to remain the centerpiece of Hutton’s career at the highest level, though he made three other double centuries besides 15 more hundreds. His unbeaten 202 at the Oval against the West Indies in 1950 was a lone hand, as he carried his bat in the face of a humiliating defeat. He was a dasher - by Yorkshire standards - before the war, but later became the archetypal new age opener, intent first on seeing off the shine of the ball as much as getting his eye in.

During the war he suffered a debilitating injury, not by enemy fire, but ironically in the friendly environs of a gymnasium. A series of operations caused his left arm to be shortened by an inch.

In 1952 he became the first professional to captain England. At the helm he showed the same caution that had crept into his batting. In many ways he was predecessor to Sunil Gavaskar, curbing his early aggressive instincts to become a staid opener as well as leader, intent on first securing his position before seeking any valour that might come his way. As Learie Constantine stated, “Hutton made a fetish of the textbook.” In his 79 Tests Hutton scored 6971 runs, averaging 56.67.

The change in Hutton’s approach to batting was also a result of extenuating circumstances. Batting had become rather easy in the inter-war period because of the flat wickets that had been rolled out. An early reaction to this, and the rampaging Bradman, was Bodyline, but that was soon stamped out. In 1935 the lbw law was amended whereby a delivery pitching outside the off-stump but coming in to hit the batsman’s pad in line with the stumps could be given out if, in the opinion of the umpire, it would have gone on to hit the stumps. Batsmen adjusted to this soon enough.

In 1948, a new provision permitted requisitioning of a new ball after 55 overs. It worked to the advantage of Bradman’s team which had a top-class fast bowling pair in Ray Lindwall and Keith Miller, aided by the swing of the tall left-armer Bill Johnston. Not all captains, though, were lucky enough to have high quality pace attacks, and in fact the season after was one of the highest scoring ever. While the perpetually hard ball flew quicker off the bat all the way to the fence, the 55-over new ball regulation was proving to be the bane of spin bowling.

To bring back the balance between bat and ball, there was now only one option left before the game’s administrators, that of preparing sporting wickets. The process began around 1950 in England. Pitches started bearing a greenish tinge, and rolling was less intensive. The ball was now seaming considerably, its shine retained for longer periods on the lush outfields.

Australia followed suit, and the 1935 lbw law began to yield rich dividends for the bowlers, with the ball cutting in sharply off the grassy surfaces. If the batsmen were a blessed lot between the two great wars, the decade of the 1950s was the most testing for them than at any time since the First World War.

If prodigious scorers like Hobbs, Sutcliffe, Hammond, Ponsford, Bradman and Headley thrived from the 1920s to the 1940s, latter day stars like Hutton had to battle hard for their runs. Wickets in the West Indies, though, continued to favour batsmen. It is significant that of the non-West Indies batsmen who played much of their cricket in the 1950s, only Hutton and Compton averaged above 50 in Tests, and they had the benefit of playing some of their cricket in the 1930s and 1940s.

The flamboyant Compton rattled up 5807 runs at an average of 50.06 with 17 centuries in 78 Tests. He was debonair as he was gutsy, which was never more evident than in that Old Trafford Test of 1948. He was hit on the head by a Lindwall bouncer and had to leave the field to get stitched up. He came back and stood up manfully to the pace assault, remaining unconquered on 145, while none of his teammates could reach 50. 

Incredibly talented, Compton was left-winger for Arsenal and also represented England at soccer eleven times during the war, though those matches were not recorded as official internationals. Indian fans were fortunate to see Compton in action during the war years. He scored an unbeaten 249 for Holkar in the 1944-45 Ranji Trophy final against Bombay. His highest in first-class matches was 300 for MCC against N.E. Transvaal at Benoni in 1948-49.  

In the popularity stakes, Compton was a winner all the way. His running between wickets was either ridiculous or hilarious, depending on which side you were on. In the field no one could be sure what to expect, brilliant one moment, hopelessly lost the next. He was the captain’s delight, and despair, depending on what seized him, one of cricket’s unforgettable characters.

(Author Indra Vikram Singh can be contacted on email singh_iv@hotmail.com).

Don’s Century

Published in India by Sporting Links

ISBN 978-81-901668-5-0

Fully illustrated

Paperback French Fold 11 x 8.5 x 0.4 inches

188 pages

Bradman Museum and Bradman Foundation. Excerpt from Indra Vikram Singh’s book ‘Don’s Century’

The Glebe wicket, where young Don had first shown his batting prowess, was transformed into Bowral Oval, and later named Sir Donald Bradman Memorial Oval. It is here at Bowral that the Bradman Museum stands. Sir Donald and Lady Jessie were present when the first stage of the museum was inaugurated in October 1989. This section is the pavilion, which comprises the clubhouse, dressing rooms and conference rooms.

Bradman noted, “In my eyes the Bradman Museum has been created to honour and strengthen the game of cricket and my name is merely a catalyst to give it birth and life. The museum complex is primarily for the youth of Australia. It is a symbol of what cricket has meant and will continue to mean to the people of our nation and cricket lovers everywhere. Without doubt the laws of cricket and the conduct of the game are a great example to the world. We should all be proud of this heritage.”

What Bradman was conveying to those who play, govern and watch this great game, was to respect it and carry it forward in its best tradition.

Seated in the dressing room of the Bradman Oval pavilion is a life-size figure of a batsman with his baggy green cap and pads on, legs stretched out and face cupped by his hands. It reveals “the mixed emotions of celebration and devastation, of players sharing those private moments.”

The museum itself, which is at times referred to as the Second Innings, opened in 1996. It encompasses three major display galleries, a special exhibition gallery, a hundred-seat auditorium, library, tea room and a children’s area. A gift shop sells Bradman memorabilia including silver pendants, key chains, cups with his autographed portrait, bats and balls. There is a special section showing the crafting of the bat from the willow, and the winding of several layers of twine around a cork core, encased in a red leather shell to form a cricket ball.

The history of cricket is captured in film footage, photographs and newspaper clippings. One can learn about the origin of the game, framing of the laws, the earliest reference in 1300 to a game of ‘Craiget’ played by Prince Edward II, formation of MCC in 1787, the legendary players, through to the modernisation of the game, night matches and commercialization.

The Bradman Foundation, which manages the Bradman Museum, conducts coaching clinics. The residential programmes for children combine other recreational activities so that the young ones enjoy new challenges in a relaxed and social setting. The Foundation provides scholarships, organises exhibitions and conducts matches.

Coinciding with the Sydney Olympics in the year 2000, an exhibition entitled ‘A Perfect Ten: Sporting Greats of the 20^th Century’ opened at the museum, recording the achievements of ten great sportspersons, Carl Lewis (athletics), Michael Jordan (basketball), Muhammad Ali (boxing), Don Bradman (cricket), Jack Nicklaus (golf), Nadia Comaneci (gymnastics), John Eales (rugby), Pele (soccer), Dawn Fraser (swimming) and Rod Laver (tennis).

To cite just one instance of the work of the Bradman Foundation, in 1997 the well-known artist Colin Joseph Dudley made a painting of H.S. Altham’s photograph of Bradman walking out to bat at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in the third Test of the 1936-37 Ashes series. It was entitled ‘Bradman’s Walk to Glory Limited Edition Masterpiece’. Each of the ninety-nine prints was autographed by The Don and priced at 20,000 Australian Dollars. The proceeds were shared by the Wheelchair Sports Association and the Bradman Foundation.

Bradman wrote, “This limited edition portrait was initiated as a reflection of my very high regard for the commitment and sporting skills of wheelchair athletes.”

Membership of the Bradman Foundation is open to everyone around the world for a nominal subscription of Aus $ 25 a year. Almost till his last days, Sir Donald religiously attended to business related to the Bradman Foundation, Bradman Museum and Bradman Collection at the State Library of South Australia.

(Author Indra Vikram Singh can be contacted on email singh_iv@hotmail.com).

Don’s Century

Published in India by Sporting Links

ISBN 978-81-901668-5-0

Fully illustrated

Paperback French Fold 11 x 8.5 x 0.4 inches

188 pages

George Headley, the ‘Black Bradman’. Excerpt from Indra Vikram Singh’s book ‘Don’s Century’

While Bradman was making waves in Australia, George Headley burst on the scene on the other side of the world, in Jamaica. He came to be known as the ‘Black Bradman’. His is quite a remarkable saga. Bradman apart, only three men have averaged sixty in a complete Test career of reasonable duration - South African southpaw Graeme Pollock 60.97, Headley 60.83 and Herbert Sutcliffe 60.73.

Headley’s achievements are all the more creditable because West Indies then were only taking their first tentative steps in the Test arena. About nine months younger than Bradman, Headley made a more dramatic entry in Test cricket, hitting 176 in the second innings of his debut Test against England at Bridgetown in 1929-30.

He relished English bowling, cracking a hundred in each innings, 114 and 112, of his third Test at Georgetown in the team’s maiden triumph, and a double century, 223, in his fourth Test, on home turf at Kingston. The colonial masters were humbled, returning with the four-Test series drawn 1-1. It was a tremendous initiation at the highest level, 703 runs at an average of 87.87. No wonder the happy people of sunny Caribbean called Bradman the ‘White Headley’.

In the testing 1930-31 tour Down Under, Headley notched up hundreds in the Brisbane and Sydney Tests, encountering Bradman for the only time in his career. Bradman himself scored 223 at Brisbane.

Headley continued to flay England’s bowlers. A big hundred - 169 not out - at Old Trafford in the 1933 series was followed by his top score of 270 not out, inevitably at Kingston, in 1934. For the second time in Tests, Headley hit a century in each innings, 106 and 107, this time in the hallowed arena of Lord’s in 1939.

Len Hutton was an unabashed admirer of Headley, as he wrote in his Fifty Years in Cricket: “Headley rightly had a devoted following. No one admired him more than I did, as I fielded at Lord’s in 1939 when he scored faultless centuries in both innings on a losing side. For years he WAS the West Indies batting, and he has to be mentioned in the same breath as Bradman (the ‘white Headley’ according to Jamaicans), Hammond and Hobbs. Clarrie Grimmett described him as ‘the greatest on-side player ever’. (He was) one of cricket’s master batsmen who had never failed in a series between 1929 and 1939 and, as a scorer, was second only to Bradman.”

Just before the Second World War broke out, Headley had scored 2135 runs at an average of 66.71 in 19 Tests. Thereafter he played one Test in each of three different series upto 1953, managing only another 55 runs.

Upto the War, rarely has a team depended so much on one batsman as the West Indies did on Headley. He scored a quarter of their runs, two per cent more than Bradman did for Australia. Strong on the back foot, he relished hitting past mid-on and handled the bad wickets deftly. He brought fresh fragrance of Caribbean flair to the international game, a pioneer in the long line of inherently gifted batsmen from those distant pristine islands.

(Author Indra Vikram Singh can be contacted on email singh_iv@hotmail.com).

Don’s Century

Published in India by Sporting Links

ISBN 978-81-901668-5-0

Fully illustrated

Paperback French Fold 11 x 8.5 x 0.4 inches

188 pages

The three great innings of Stan McCabe. Excerpt from Indra Vikram Singh’s book ‘Don’s Century’

One of Bradman’s compatriots in the Australian middle-order through the 1930s was Stan McCabe. He was every bit a top-class player, orthodox yet aggressive, and one of the least heralded. His status was perhaps akin to V.V.S. Laxman of modern times, ever the artist but forced to live in the shadows of the mighty Sachin Tendulkar, the reliable Rahul Dravid, the delightful Sourav Ganguly and the maverick Virender Sehwag. McCabe’s deeds were eclipsed by the prodigious run-getting of Bradman and Ponsford.

187 not out versus England at Sydney, 1932-33

Just as Laxman’s memorable knocks against the world’s best team, Australia, notably his astonishing 281 at Kolkata in 2001 will ever remain etched in the minds of the public and critics alike, so have been brilliant innings of McCabe for over 80 years already. His courageous, defiant unbeaten 187 at Sydney in the first Test of the 1932-33 Bodyline series was a terrific riposte under daunting circumstances. Bradman did not play that Test due to his dispute with the Australian Board of Control. As McCabe stood up boldly to the short-pitched stuff and hooked it disdainfully, critics concluded that he handled Douglas Jardine’s abominable leg-theory with greater finesse than Bradman.

Learie Constantine in his The Young Cricketer’s Companion wrote: “When Larwood went to Australia and tied Bradman and most of the rest of them in sheep bends and clove hitches and made some batsmen drop their bats and others sit on their wickets, it was McCabe who improvised a daring hook to the leg boundary and made a brilliant century against bodyline as he has done against most other kinds of bowling without the least favouritism.”

189 not out versus South Africa at Johannesburg, 1935-36

If his display at Sydney revealed a tough mind, McCabe’s performance at high altitude at Johannesburg’s Old Wanderers in 1935-36 was a triumph of skill over limitations imposed by physical distress. With Australia at 85 for one, chasing another 314 for a win on the fourth and final day, McCabe, short of breath as a result of the rarefied air, and bleary of eye for the sleepless night he had spent, was in no condition to bat. He informed Vic Richardson of his discomfort. The skipper, in no position to oblige, urged his star batsman - Bradman could not join the tour - to continue his innings, then anchored at 59: “If the altitude gets to you, don’t run. Just hit fours.”

Left with no option, McCabe breezed out to the crease with the other not out, Jack Fingleton. Deliveries leapt and turned square on the dusty wearing track, but McCabe’s elegant shots found the gaps time and time again. He raised his hundred in 91 minutes, fourth quickest at the time after the feats of Jack Gregory (70 minutes in 1921-22 at this very venue), Gilbert Jessop (75 minutes in 1902) and James Sinclair (80 minutes in 1902-03). He clocked up an exact 100 before lunch, carving out 20 boundaries. Australia now needed 182 runs to win in two full sessions. Fingleton offered a broad blade and when he was castled for 40, the partnership was worth 177, of which McCabe’s share was 148. Fingleton recalled, “McCabe’s innings seemed like a crazy dream to me.”

As the thunderclouds drifted in from the northwest, the South African captain Herbert Wade appealed against the light on the plea that McCabe’s ferocious strokeplay was endangering his fielders! It was still only 2.45 in the afternoon and soon the heavens opened up with McCabe on 189, and Australia poised at 274 for two.

Ray Robinson wrote in Between the Wickets: “McCabe’s brilliance had so transformed the situation that, instead of struggling to stall off defeat, the Australians were playing like winners with 125 more to get and eight wickets in hand. He had batted three and a quarter hours for his 189, while 66 were scored at the other end. He hit 29 4s, probably a record for a Test innings under 200.” He was indeed following his skipper’s instructions to a tee, and in the process South African Dudley Nourse’s second innings 231 was forgotten.

Don Bradman (left) and Stan McCabe walking out to bat.

232 versus England at Nottingham, 1938

The third signature McCabe knock was at Trent Bridge in 1938, marked by exquisite strokeplay. He came to the crease at the fall of Bradman’s wicket. It was a breathtaking innings of 232 in only 230 minutes, during which eight of his partners departed, having managed a mere 68 all told, extras included. The next highest was Bradman’s 51. It was then the second-fastest double century in 223 minutes, after Bradman’s (in 214 minutes in 1930), and a shade quicker than Trumper’s (226 minutes in 1910-11).

Vic Marks noted: “The wicket was a lot easier than the time Jessop turned the tide, but McCabe’s strokeplay was purer with scarcely a hint of risk, and accompanied by masterly manipulation of the strike.” So awesome was the strokemaking that Bradman summoned his players - some of whom were playing cards - to the balcony, telling them: “You won’t see strokeplay like this again. McCabe hit 72 out of the last-wicket stand of 77 with Fleetwood-Smith in a matter of 28 minutes.”

The full significance of the innings was elaborated by Denzil Batchelor, when he observed: “McCabe had done a unique thing. Many men have won matches off their own bat. On this wicket, and with England’s skyscraping score, such a feat was not possible - so McCabe had done more. He had come in at a moment in history when it seemed certain that the sun was about to set on a long period in Australian ascendancy. McCabe, by his own efforts, had stopped the sun, and saved the Australian empire.” The series was ultimately drawn 1-1.

Nicknamed ‘Napper’ for his striking resemblance to Napolean, he rekindled nostalgia for the strokeplay of Trumper and Macartney. As Ken Piesse wrote, “Impeccable footwork and his indomitable spirit in adversity made him one of Australia’s true greats.”

Constantine was of the opinion that “McCabe had a great range of strokes, and, though not such a complete master of the balls on the off-stump and just outside as Wally Hammond was, he was very strong at forcing strokes towards the on-side. I remember watching McCabe in a Test hitting across Verity’s leg-break and carting it round to the on-side. Hardly any batsman who has ever lived could have done it; yet McCabe brought stroke after stroke. They all came off, and the result was a spectacular and sparkling innings. If he had missed one of those patient, penetrating balls by the slightest bit of mistiming the result would have been a dismissal that looked terrible - the village blacksmith trying his arts on the past master of English bowling. Success, you see, excuses itself - ‘the head of the table is wherever McGregor sits’.” 

McCabe made 2748 runs in 39 Tests at an average of 48.21 with 6 hundreds, and he scored at a very rapid rate. When he died in 1968 at the age of 58 after falling from a cliff in Sydney, the game lost one of its most popular figures.

(Author Indra Vikram Singh can be contacted on email singh_iv@hotmail.com).

Don’s Century

Published in India by Sporting Links

ISBN 978-81-901668-5-0

Fully illustrated

Paperback French Fold 11 x 8.5 x 0.4 inches

188 pages