Charlie Macartney joins Trumper and Bradman as greatest Australian batsmen

by A. C de Silva

CRICKET: On February 2, 1936 a short potly cricketer emerged from the pavilion in Chepauk to take the field along with his colleagues. This team was the first from Australia ever to play in India and the rather fat cricketer the first "immortal" from that country India ever saw.

This individual was not the captain of this team. The captain was a tall player, towering high above the rest, was striding by his side. But though the captain was far from unknown, everybody's attention was fixed on his companion.

This cricketer in question looked like an evergrown balloon with legs and arms sticking to the extremities. On his head perched a felt hat. Later research showed that he was then some two years short of the half-century.

The player in question was the great Charlie Macartney, the authentic "Governor-General" of cricket, the successor of Trumper and the predecessor of Bradman. These three have been the greatest of Australian batsmen in the long history of the game. The people in India did not set eyes on Trumper or Bradman.

It was something to have seen Macartney, fat though he was, 48-year-old though he was, and unathletic as he might have seemed to be. Even if he had been four score years old and could only hobble to the wicket on crutches, the spectators could have been well content.

Macartney toured India in 1935-36 as the vice-captain of what was officially called the Maharajdhiraja of Patiala's Australian team, the captain was Jack Ryder who died in the seventies at an advanced age. He was a player of parts and achievements. But, of course, his fame paled besides that of Macartney.

Strange combination

Australian cricket has had a long tradition of aggressive skill, uncompromising, even stern. But the first team it sent to India was a strange combination of the old and the untried. Besides Macartney and Ryder there were Ironmonger, possibly the worst batsman ever to play first-class cricket in India with the exception of Chandrasekhar, Hendry (who was taller than even Ryder) and Ellis, with Orenham, the team's leading bowler, Nagel also very tall, and Love, the first wicket-keeper, by no means in the flush of youth. On the other hand, there were fledgings in Wendell Bill, Morrisby and Bryant.

Coming as this did two reasons after Jardine's, one felt the contrast. Where Indian cricket had been ground into the dust, it was now flourishing. True, it did not flourish beyond reason, for it defeated the unbalanced Australian side only in two of the four unofficial "Tests." But then around 1930 and for many years later an Indian success over any touring team was unheard of and something to savour.

Statistics mean little to a player of Macartney's improvised style, but it is some what important to say that on the Indian tour, he played 17 innings, two of them unbeaten to aggregate 485 runs, averaging 32.3. He followed Ryder, Wendell Bill and Morrisby. As a slow left-arm bowler, he captured 34 wickets at 16.20 each.

These "figures" show that, despite every probability, this old cricketer was a success in India.

Macartney - a fine batsman

Macartney emerged into fame as a slow bowler. This was in 1909 in England. But, after the Kaiser has been disposed of, and when he came to England again in 1912, he had turned into a fine batsman. He plundered six centuries. But it was in 1921 that he rose to the height his genius.

Sir Neville Cardus, who understood it best of all critics and savoured his doings, says, "In 1921 at Trent Bridge, he scored 345 in 3 hours, 50 minutes. He was missed when 9 in the slips. He cut and drove with blinding swiftness. No bowler, no tactics, no kind of field could tame Macartney."

Macartney passed away in 1958 and Sir Neville wrote of him in an affectionate tribute which cannot possibly be equalled for his fine descriptions: "Macartney's innings plundered the attack savagely. His strokes might flash at times all round the wicket, but there was no yielding humour in them. He was after the blood of Englishmen.

As the bowler prepared to run, Macartney would raise his bat above his head, legs apart, as though stretching himself loose for action. From under the long peak of his green Australian cap gleamed two eyes bright as a bird's. The chin was thrust out in defence. His shoulders were square and he was also medium height. His arms were powerful, wrists as steel."

Macartney was an ironside cavalier. None the less, he belongs to the great immortal and decreasing company of cricketers who while they are attending to the duty of their team and the first duty of any player is try to win - combine serious intent with personal relish, thus winning not only for admiration, but our affection, remaining warm in our memory for years." At the Leeds Test in the same adventurous season of 1921 he scored 115, reaching his century before lunch.

He was truly a law unto himself, an untutored genius of a batsman. He constantly did things that would be quite wrong for an ordinary batsman, but by success justified all his audacities.