On 3 February 1912 Clem Hill, Australia's captain in the 1911-12 Ashes, and his fellow selector Peter McAlister came to blows in Bull's Chambers in Sydney during a stormy selection meeting. The 20-minute fistfight was one of the most extraordinary administrative incidents in cricket history and a direct precursor of the Big Six dispute.
Hill had captained Australia for two seasons. McAlister, a former Test batsman and now a Board appointee, resented Hill and the player establishment.
Through summer 1911-12 McAlister had publicly criticised Hill's batting and captaincy. The 3 February meeting was the third selection sitting in two weeks.
Hill, McAlister and Frank Iredale were the three selectors charged with picking the Australian team for the fifth Test of the 1911-12 Ashes. McAlister, a Board nominee and a former Test player who fancied himself as captain, had been needling Hill all summer. The selection meeting on 3 February in Bull's Chambers, Sydney, deteriorated as McAlister suggested Hill was a poor captain and a bad batsman. Hill, by his own later account, told McAlister to repeat the words. McAlister did. Hill struck him. The two grappled across the table, fell to the floor, and exchanged blows for what witnesses said was twenty minutes before being separated. Both were bloodied. Iredale was reportedly too shocked to intervene. The incident became public almost immediately. McAlister's bruising lined up with his subsequent role as the Board's man on the selection committee that would, weeks later, refuse to compromise on the manager dispute. The Big Six players' walk-out followed within months. The Bull's Chambers fight is the personal flashpoint that lit the longer fuse of 1912.
Through 1911-12: McAlister publicly criticises Hill
3 Feb 1912: Selection meeting at Bull's Chambers, Sydney
Mid-meeting: McAlister insults Hill; Hill strikes him
Twenty-minute brawl across the table
Witnesses separate the two
Summer 1911-12
McAlister publicly criticises Hill
3 Feb 1912
Bull's Chambers selection meeting; fight breaks out
Mar 1912
Big Six dispute over manager
Apr 1912
Big Six refuse to tour
“I told him to take that back. He didn't. So I hit him.”
Twenty minutes of fistfights between Australia's captain and a fellow selector — the personal explosion behind the Big Six dispute.
The fight is a recurring set-piece in every history of the Big Six dispute — the moment the personal hostility between players and Board became literally physical.
England v West Indies
1933-07-22
Six months after Bodyline, Learie Constantine and Manny Martindale opened up with sustained leg-theory bouncers at Douglas Jardine in the Old Trafford Test. Jardine, captaining England, stood up and made 127 — his only Test century — proving, at considerable physical cost, that he could face the tactic he had unleashed on Australia.
India vs Pakistan
1996-03-09
On March 9, 1996, Pakistan's Aamer Sohail cut Venkatesh Prasad for four, then pointed his bat at the boundary as if to say 'I'll do it again'. Next ball Prasad bowled him, then animatedly waved him off the field. The send-off became the defining image of the India-Pakistan 1996 World Cup quarter-final, won by India by 39 runs.
England vs West Indies
1954-04-01
Fred Trueman's 1953-54 tour of the West Indies under Len Hutton was a personal disaster. The 22-year-old Yorkshire fast bowler clashed with hosts, opponents, umpires and even his own captain. At the end of the tour MCC withheld his Good Conduct Bonus — a public censure that probably cost him his place on the next two overseas tours and which Trueman resented for the rest of his life.