Lionel Tennyson Bats with One Hand — Headingley Ashes, 1921

England were 0-2 down in a series being run over by Gregory and McDonald. Sir Pelham Warner had urged the selectors to find a captain who would 'lead from the front'; Tennyson, only 31 and an army veteran of the Western Front, was that man.

Tennyson, grandson of the Poet Laureate, had been hurriedly elevated to the England captaincy after Johnny Douglas was dropped following the Lord's Test. He took over a side already 0-2 down to Warwick Armstrong's all-conquering tourists. On the Saturday at Headingley, fielding to one of Charlie Macartney's drives, he split the webbing of his left hand so badly that the wound required several stitches and a leather guard. The injury made gripping a bat with both hands impossible.

When England replied to Australia's 407, Tennyson came in at the fall of the fourth wicket and, with the hand strapped into what Wisden later called a 'basket guard', proceeded to play a series of one-handed drives and pulls off Jack Gregory's pace, scoring 63 in around an hour. England were beaten — Australia won by 219 runs — but Tennyson followed it with another one-handed 36 in the second innings. He could barely change his own clothes between sessions; teammates buttoned his shirt for him.

The innings did not save the Test, did not save the series, and did not even keep the captaincy in his hands beyond a few months, but it became part of cricket's folklore of bodily defiance, a precursor to Bert Sutcliffe at Ellis Park, Rick McCosker at Centenary Test, and Anil Kumble bowling with a bandaged jaw eighty-one years later.

“He could not properly hold the bat, but he played the strokes of a free man.”

England drew the last two Tests, ending Australia's series-victory margin at 3-0. Tennyson kept the captaincy for those matches but lost it before the next series. He later led MCC tours and became a much-loved cricket writer.