The Big Six Dispute — Australia's Senior Players Walk Out, 1912

Clem Hill had already been in a public brawl with selector Peter McAlister in a Sydney hotel room in February 1912, an incident that exposed the depth of player-administrator hostility.

The Board met in March 1912 and confirmed Crouch as manager. The six players, represented in their public correspondence by Hill and Armstrong, withdrew their availability.

The dispute had been brewing for years. Australia's touring sides had traditionally appointed their own managers, with the players keeping a share of the proceeds. The newly empowered Board of Control for International Cricket in Australia, formed in 1905, had been steadily clawing back authority. The flashpoint was the 1912 tour: the Big Six insisted on Laver, a former player and Test selector, as manager. The Board insisted on its own nominee, George Crouch. When neither side would yield, the six players announced they were unavailable. The Board called their bluff and sent a depleted side to England under Syd Gregory. Australia were swept aside in the Triangular Tournament. The Big Six never played for Australia again — Trumper died in 1915, Cotter was killed at Beersheba in 1917, and Hill, Armstrong, Carter and Ransford only resumed Test careers, briefly, after the war.

“We have decided that we cannot place ourselves under the control of a manager appointed by the Board.”

Australia finished bottom of the Triangular Tournament. Of the Big Six, only Carter, Armstrong and Ransford played Test cricket again after the war. Armstrong, recalled in 1920-21, captained the side that whitewashed England 5-0.