In June, July and August 1926 the 40-year-old Charlie Macartney made centuries in three successive Tests against England — 133 at Lord's, 151 at Headingley (where he reached 100 before lunch on the first morning), and 109 at Old Trafford. He was only the second man in Ashes history to score hundreds in three consecutive Tests.
Macartney had been recalled to Test cricket in 1920-21 after a four-year gap and had played intermittently for Australia since. By 1926 he was 40 and openly considered this his last English tour; the form he produced suggested otherwise.
Macartney came to England for the 1926 Ashes at the age of 40, with the war and his Trent Bridge 345 of 1921 already behind him. He played the first Test at Trent Bridge in a match washed out by rain. At Lord's he made 133 not out, batting through the second day with Bardsley to give Australia a strong position; the match was drawn.
At Headingley he produced one of the most quoted innings in Test history. Australia were 1 for 1 — Bardsley out first ball — when Macartney walked in. He had been dropped at slip second ball by Carr off Tate. From that life he proceeded to score 100 before lunch on the first day of a Test, an Ashes feat shared at the time only with Trumper at Old Trafford in 1902. His 151, made in 172 minutes, included 21 fours.
At Old Trafford in the fourth Test he made 109 in another rain-affected match. The fifth Test at the Oval was won by England — Hobbs and Sutcliffe famously battling on the sticky wicket and Rhodes recalled at 48 — but Macartney's three-Test sequence had matched Bardsley's earlier feat (1909) of consecutive Ashes hundreds and confirmed his place beside Trumper as the most cavalier of pre-war Australian stylists.
Lord's, June 1926: Macartney 133*, match drawn
Headingley, July 1926: dropped second ball at slip; reaches 100 before lunch on day 1
Headingley: out for 151 in 172 minutes, including 21 fours
Old Trafford, July 1926: 109 in another drawn Test
Three centuries in three Tests — only the second Australian to do so in Ashes history after Bardsley (1909)
Jun 1926
Lord's: Macartney 133*
Jul 1926
Headingley: 151, 100 before lunch on day 1
Jul 1926
Old Trafford: 109
“I told them at the start of the day I was going to hit them, and I did. I had no intention of letting Carr's drop count for nothing.”
Macartney's three-in-three of 1926 was the late-career masterpiece of one of cricket's great attacking stylists, and the 100 before lunch at Headingley remains in the small handful of innings that define the upper limit of pre-Bradman Test batting.
Macartney's 100-before-lunch at Headingley sits with Trumper's 1902 effort and Bradman's 1930 (also at Headingley) as the only three pre-1980 instances of an Ashes batsman scoring a century in the first session. The three-Test consecutive hundreds were not matched by an Australian until Don Bradman in 1936-37.
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.