Charlie Macartney established himself in the 1910-1914 period as Australia's most dashing pre-war stroke-maker after Trumper — a small, neat batsman with a back-foot drive so destructive that English crowds would later nickname him 'the Governor-General' for the way he carried himself at the crease.
Macartney was a New South Wales batsman who had begun as a slow left-arm bowler. By 1910 the batting was the senior part of his game.
On the 1912 Triangular tour his runs and an emergency stint with the ball — when Australia were short of bowlers — kept the depleted side competitive.
Macartney's Test debut had come in 1907; through 1910-1914 he hardened into one of the most attacking middle-order batsmen in world cricket. On the 1912 Triangular tour, even with the Big Six absent, he was the leading Australian run-scorer. He served in the AIF during the war, ending it as a sergeant in France. After the war his most famous innings — including 170 in 232 minutes at Headingley in 1926 — would come, but his foundation was laid in the immediate pre-war years. Like Hobbs, Hendren and Woolley, he is one of the cricketers whose career was bisected by the war but who returned to greater fame on the other side.
1907: Test debut
1910-11: Established in Test middle order
1912: Top of Australian averages on Triangular tour
1915-18: Serves with AIF in France
1907
Test debut for Australia
1912
Top of Australian averages on Triangular tour
1915-18
AIF service in France
1920
Returns to Test cricket
“He treated the bowling with a kind of disdain.”
Macartney returned in 1920-21 and played Tests until 1926, his most famous years. He died in 1958.
The pre-war emergence of the most dashing Australian batsman of the 1920s.
Macartney is remembered for the 1920s, but the pre-war seasons were where his Test technique was forged. His career spans the same era as Hobbs's and bridges the same break.
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.