Charlie Macartney, picked as a left-arm spinner with handy lower-order batting, made his Test debut at Sydney in December 1907. Kent's KL Hutchings, observing Macartney's confident demeanour at the wicket, dubbed him 'The Governor-General' — a name meant ironically (Macartney was barely 21) but one that stuck for the rest of his career.
Macartney came from cricketing stock — his father played for the local Maitland club. He moved to Sydney as a teenager and joined Gordon CC. By 19 he was playing for NSW; by 21 he was a Test cricketer.
In 1907 he was a left-arm spinner first and foremost. His batting at this stage was still developing; he was a number-nine for Australia. The reinvention as an attacking middle-order batsman was a 1910s and 1920s development.
Charles George Macartney, born in Maitland, NSW, in 1886, made his Test debut at the Sydney Cricket Ground on 13 December 1907 against Plum Warner's England side captained on the field by F.L. Fane. He was picked primarily as a left-arm spinner with handy lower-order batting; he had played seven first-class matches and was 21 years old.
In the first innings he batted at nine, scoring 35 in just under an hour. The story, told by Macartney himself in later years, was that as he came in he adopted a bristly, confident posture at the wicket and immediately began to look for runs. The Kent and England batsman KL Hutchings, fielding at slip, called out something to the effect of 'Here comes the Governor-General' — the joke being that the young debutant from rural NSW was strutting around as if he owned the place.
The nickname stuck. Macartney would carry it through his career, and it was eventually adopted without irony as he became one of Australia's great attacking batsmen of the 1920s. He scored 99 before lunch on the first day at Headingley in 1926 — equalling Trumper's 1902 feat at Old Trafford — and made a Test triple-hundred against Otago in 1924-25. His final Test record was 2,131 runs at 41.78 and 45 wickets at 27.55 over 35 matches between 1907 and 1926.
13 Dec 1907: Macartney's Test debut, batting at 9.
First innings: 35, with Hutchings' nickname coined at the wicket.
Took 2 wickets in the match with left-arm spin.
Australia win the Test by 2 wickets in a last-wicket finish.
Macartney's series: 17 wickets, 90 runs.
1909 tour of England: continues as bowler-batsman.
1912 Triangular: still primarily a bowler.
1920s: emerges as a leading batsman; the 'Governor-General' name fits without irony.
27 June 1886
Macartney born in Maitland, NSW.
1905-06
First-class debut for NSW.
13 Dec 1907
Test debut, Sydney; nickname coined.
1907-08 series
17 wickets in 5 Tests.
1909
Tours England as bowling all-rounder.
1921
Emerges as senior batsman post-war.
11 July 1926
99 before lunch on day one at Headingley.
9 Sep 1958
Dies in Sydney, aged 71.
“I was a confident lad on debut.”
Macartney played intermittently through the 1910s, his career interrupted by the war. He emerged after the war as a different cricketer — more aggressive, more dominant, focusing on batting. By 1921 he was Australia's senior batsman; by 1926 he was scoring centuries before lunch at Headingley.
He captained NSW after the war and was a candidate for the Australian captaincy, though this never came to him. He retired from Test cricket in 1926.
A nickname of fond mockery that became a title of respect. Macartney's confident bearing at the crease in his first Test was the first sign of the attacking batsman who would, two decades later, dismantle England in Australia's golden 1920s sides.
The nickname 'Governor-General' is one of the few in cricket that started as mockery and became respectful. By the 1920s Macartney was so commanding at the wicket that the title fitted; only those who knew its origin in 1907 remembered the joke.
Macartney himself wrote in his 1930s autobiography that he had been 'a confident lad' on debut and that Hutchings' line had been received in good humour. He died in Sydney in 1958, aged 71.
Zimbabwe vs England
1996-12-22
The first Test between Zimbabwe and England at Bulawayo in December 1996 ended in a draw with the scores level — the first ever in Test history. Coach David 'Bumble' Lloyd, frustrated by Zimbabwe's defensive tactics, told a press conference 'we flippin' murdered em'. He was reprimanded by the ECB.
England vs Australia
4 August 1975
On 4 August 1975, during the second Ashes Test at Lord's, a 24-year-old merchant seaman from Liverpool named Michael Angelow leapt the boundary fence wearing only socks and trainers, hurdled both sets of stumps to the amusement of the players, and was wrestled to the ground by police. He had taken a £20 bet from his shipmates. He was fined £20 in court the next morning, and the BBC commentary by John Arlott — "we have got a freaker, not very shapely, and it is masculine — and I would think it has seen the last of its cricket for the day" — became one of the most replayed pieces of cricket commentary of the decade.
Australia
1981-12-12
Australian captain Greg Chappell, the most prolific batsman in the country, made four ducks in a row across Tests and ODIs during the 1981-82 home summer — and seven ducks across the season — earning the temporary nickname 'Chappello'.