George Aubrey Faulkner of Transvaal was — by Wisden's 1910 reckoning — 'the best all-rounder in the world'. He averaged 60.55 in the 1909-10 series at home v England, then made 732 runs at 73.20 (including 204) on the 1910-11 tour of Australia, where South Africa lost the series 4-1. A googly bowler and middle-order batsman, his career spanned 1906 to 1924.
South Africa had been promoted to Test status in 1889, but won only one Test in their first 17 years. The development of a googly attack — Schwarz, Vogler, White and Faulkner — transformed the side between 1905 and 1907. Faulkner was both the youngest of the four and the only one capable of high-quality batting.
The 1909-10 series at home was played on matting wickets at Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town. The googly attack flourished in those conditions; Faulkner contributed disproportionately with the bat as well as 29 wickets.
By the time the 1910-11 tour to Australia was announced, Faulkner — already 28 — was the team's senior batsman. Wisden noted him as the only South African likely to flourish on Australian turf wickets, where the matting tactics of home would not apply.
Faulkner was born in Port Elizabeth in December 1881 and learnt the googly directly from Reggie Schwarz, who in turn had learnt it from Bosanquet at Middlesex. He made his Test debut in 1906 in South Africa's home series against England (the series in which South Africa won their first Test, at Johannesburg) and quickly became the team's most-rounded cricketer.
His peak ran across two southern-hemisphere seasons. In 1909-10 at home v Henry Leveson-Gower's England team, Faulkner topped the run aggregate for either side with 545 at 60.55, including 123 at Johannesburg, and was second-leading wicket-taker with 29 at 21.89. South Africa won the series 3-2 — the first home Test series South Africa had ever won. Wisden the following spring called him 'the best all-round cricketer in the world'.
In 1910-11 South Africa toured Australia for the first time, losing the five-Test series 4-1; but Faulkner made 732 runs at 73.20 in the Tests, including 204 at Melbourne (the highest South African Test score to that point), 56 and 115 at Adelaide, and four other fifties. Australia's bowlers, led by Cotter and Hordern, broke the rest of the side; Faulkner alone resisted.
Later highlights: in 1921 he made 153 against Warwick Armstrong's near-invincible Australians playing for an Archie MacLaren XI at Eastbourne, helping to inflict the tourists' only defeat of the summer. Test record: 25 matches, 1,754 runs at 40.79 with four hundreds, 82 wickets at 26.58.
1906-07: Test debut and 78 in South Africa's first Test win at Johannesburg.
1909-10: 545 runs at 60.55 + 29 wickets at 21.89 v England at home.
Wisden 1910 calls him 'the best all-rounder in the world'.
1910-11: 204 v Australia at Melbourne — highest SA Test innings to that date.
1910-11: 732 runs at 73.20 in five Tests despite 4-1 series defeat.
1921: 153 for MacLaren XI v Armstrong's Australians at Eastbourne — the only defeat of the tour.
17 December 1881
Faulkner born in Port Elizabeth.
1906-07
Test debut; 78 in SA's first Test win.
1907
Tours England with the SA googly attack.
1909-10
545 runs + 29 wickets v England at home; Wisden 'best all-rounder'.
1910-11
732 runs at 73.20 v Australia; 204 at Melbourne.
1914-18
First World War service: DSO + Order of the Nile.
1921
153 for MacLaren XI defeats Armstrong's Australians at Eastbourne.
1924
Last Test.
10 September 1930
Dies by suicide in his Walham Green coaching school.
“Faulkner was the best all-rounder I ever saw.”
“A genius of cricket, the best all-round player South Africa has produced.”
Faulkner served in the Royal Field Artillery and Imperial Camel Corps in the First World War, winning the DSO and the Order of the Nile. He played his last Test in 1924, by which time he was running the Faulkner School of Cricket in Walham Green, London, the first specialist cricket coaching school of its kind. He coached Bill Bowes, Ian Peebles, Bob Wyatt and others.
On 10 September 1930, suffering from depression and the lingering effects of war, Faulkner gassed himself in his school office. He was 48.
Faulkner is the greatest all-rounder South Africa produced before the era of Pollock and Procter. The 1910-11 Australian tour, where he carried a beaten side virtually alone, is the high-water mark of his playing career.
Faulkner was inducted into the ICC Hall of Fame in 2009. His school produced a generation of England players in the 1920s and 1930s. The 1910-11 Test series remains a benchmark for individual brilliance in a losing side: 732 runs in five Tests is bettered only by a handful of players in any era.
Wisden's 1931 obituary said: 'A genius of cricket, the best all-round player South Africa has produced.'
Yorkshire v Essex
1932-06-16
On 15-16 June 1932 Herbert Sutcliffe (313) and Percy Holmes (224*) put on 555 for the first wicket against Essex at Leyton, breaking the world first-class record for any wicket and adding a layer of folklore — including a scoreboard that read 554 for several minutes and a hastily reversed declaration — that has clung to the partnership ever since.
Australia v England
1933-02-14
With the fate of the Bodyline series in the balance and England 216 for 6 chasing 340, Eddie Paynter checked himself out of a Brisbane hospital where he was being treated for acute tonsillitis, taxied to the Gabba in pyjamas and a dressing gown, and batted for nearly four hours to score 83. England drew level on first innings, won the Test by six wickets and the series 4-1.
Australia
1934-09-25
Days after the 1934 Oval Test, Bradman fell seriously ill with appendicitis that progressed to peritonitis. With antibiotics not yet available, he was given little chance of survival; his wife Jessie left Adelaide on a sea voyage to England prepared for the worst. He recovered after weeks of intensive nursing in a London nursing home and returned to first-class cricket the following Australian summer.