Roy Park, who had served as a doctor with the Australian Army Medical Corps in France, returned to club cricket in Melbourne in late 1919. Within fifteen months he would play a single Test for Australia at Melbourne, face one ball, be bowled for a duck, and never play another. The 1919 comeback is the start of one of cricket's strangest career arcs.
Park had played for Victoria from 1908. He was studying medicine at Melbourne University when he enlisted. The AAMC sent him to France with the casualty clearing stations.
Released from service in 1919, he returned to Melbourne to complete his medical practice and resume cricket.
Park had been a Melbourne University medical student and a stylish batsman for Victoria before the war. He enlisted in the AAMC, qualified as a doctor on active service, and served at field hospitals in France through 1916-1918. Returning to Melbourne in late 1919, he resumed club cricket for University and quickly returned to form. The following Australian summer (1920-21) he was selected for the second Test against Warwick Armstrong's England side at the MCG. He came in at the fall of the first wicket, played at and missed the first ball he received from Howard Sussex, and was bowled. Australian folklore — repeated in Wisden, Bill Frindall and Bill O'Reilly's columns — holds that his wife, in the crowd, missed the dismissal because she had bent down to pick up her knitting. He was not picked again. His career Test record reads: one match, one innings, no not-outs, 0 runs, average 0, one ball faced. His daughter married Ian Johnson, who later captained Australia.
1916-1918: Serves as AAMC officer in France
Oct 1919: Returns to club cricket for University in Melbourne
Dec 1920: Selected for second Test against England at MCG
Dec 1920: Bowled first ball for 0; never plays another Test
1892
Roy Lindsay Park born in Melbourne
1908
First-class debut for Victoria
1916-18
Serves as AAMC doctor in France
Oct 1919
Returns to club cricket in Melbourne
Dec 1920
Faces one ball, out for 0 in only Test
“Mrs Park bent down to pick up her knitting and missed her husband's entire Test career.”
Park continued in club and state cricket and worked as a doctor in Melbourne until his death in 1947. His one-ball Test remains the shortest batting career of any specialist batsman in Test history.
A doctor turned wartime AAMC officer turned one-ball Test cricketer — and the start of the most lopsided career in Australian Test history began with his 1919 club return.
The Park story — wartime doctor, single ball, knitting wife — has been retold in every Australian cricket anthology of the last century. The 1919 comeback after war service is the often-overlooked first chapter.
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'.