Round 1 Match Report - 2nd Grade

Match Report - 2nd Grade vs Sydney CC at Drummoyne Oval (50 Overs)

Sydney University 8/229 (50.0)
R Wikramanayake 51 (90)
H Clark 3-35 (10.0)

DEF

Sydney CC 7/210 (50.0)
T Mullen 99 (149)
C Egerton 3-47 (10.0)

After months of speculation whether Round 1 would even take place, the Sydney Uni Scooby Doos arrived at the glorious Drummoyne Oval with a spring in their step, excited to take on the always competitive Tigers from Tigerland, YELLOW AND BLACK.

The forecasted doom and gloom was nowhere to be seen and the premium nash conditions led to a highly entertaining victory for the newly formed ‘Bottom 5 alphabetically listed surnames’ side (certainly not as easy to scribe as City v Country). Newly-appointed skipper Clark(e) had no hesitation in batting first when the coin toss fell in his favour, the first of a few victories over his counterpart that day. As expected, the Drummoyne wicket was hard but certainly had plenty of grass coverage, ensuring that a fair and honest battle between bat and ball would take place.

Fullerton got a good one and fell early, much to the dismay of his mother who sadly arrived at the ground at approximately 10:06am and was on her way back over the Harbour Bridge by 10:09am. Some classy stroke play between newcomer Wikramanayake and Litchfield was evident for all to see in their 84-run partnership, a clinic of elegant drives from the two top-order bats before Litchfield fell to a sharp catch off the bowling of Mullen. Wikramanayake brought up his second half-century on the bounce for the Students but was dismissed not too shortly after, leaving the Books delicately placed at 3-115 with less than 20 overs remaining.

Old-heads (relatively speaking) Hope and Danne went about ticking the scoreboard over and cashing in on any loose deliveries, a 59-run partnership brought to an end when Hope hit a short wide one straight to backward point that simply “had his name on it”. Some lusty cow-corner heaves from Zannino had his shoulder in all sorts but the Italian Stallion carried on batting and still wicket-kept the whole second innings in a courageous effort.

The Sydney side bowled and fielded serviceably, the final score for the Uni Boys was 8-229 - competitive but certainly not in the driver’s seat.

The Uni bowlers set about their work on a wicket that was turning into a genuine flatty. A rhythmic and threatening first spell from Tate went unrewarded, however, skipper Clark(e) possessed the magic touch to get the breakthrough, bringing himself on and beating the Sydney opening batter for pace with a perfectly placed yorker. Drinks came with the Tigers looking comfortable in their position of 1-71, the message in the huddle was clear - energy in the ring to cut off singles and limit the boundary ball. Compare the Meerkat...simples.

The first ball after the break, Hope was gifted a return catch off a shin-high fully, bringing the Tigers skipper to the crease in what everyone knew was going to be a pivotal partnership in the game. The Students stuck to the game plan with exceptional tenacity and slowly began accumulating dot ball after dot ball, creeping the required run rate above 5, 5.5, and eventually 6 as the two sides headed off for their second smoko.

The young Students were right up for the fight, especially when skipper Clark(e) nicked off the dangerous Smith and then blew off the next batsman’s foot with another searing yorker. Bang, bang, one brings two, death, taxes and Clark(e) on a hat-trick etc etc.

The double-wicket over was a massive shift of momentum in the game and was capitalised on beautifully by the young Blue & Gold boys. The incoming Sydney batters had obviously just put down the ‘The Jacques Kallis Guide to Chasing in a One-Dayer’ moments before coming out to the crease and struggled for any fluency against the quality death-bowling skills of Greaves, Flanagan and Tate.

In what was a team effort for the ages and to no surprise, the morale in the sheds following the 19-run victory was sky-high. It must be said - after months of not being able to spend any time with our mates during another mentally taxing lockdown, those 3.5 hours in the field at Drummoyne were as much fun as your scribe can remember having on a cricket field for a very, very long time.

Love the Uni Boys.

Max Hope

A Singular Honour (Part 10)

                                                WILFRED JAMES WHITE 1881-1938

When Wilfred White walked out to bat for Sydney University against Waverley at the SCG on 27 February 1904, he was about to play his only innings in 1st Grade for the Club (1st Grade cap no80).

He scored a single and remained undefeated when the last wicket fell with the scoreboard showing ‘University 343’. The captain EF Waddy (118) and future NSW player AD Fisher (114) had scored freely. The next Saturday, Waverley made 261. White took two catches and University had recorded its only victory of the season. 1903-04 was the Club’s second season back in the 1st Grade competition after four seasons of isolation when the 1st team played in the 2nd Grade competition and where the University 1sts twice won the 2nd Grade competition. When the NSW Cricket Association readmitted the Club to 1st Grade in 1902-03, the terms of readmittance were humbling. Matriculated students only were permitted to represent the Club. It took some years before the Club found its feet. In the first five seasons from 1902-03, University’s 1st Grade won only 12 times from 48 games.

WJ White’s promotion to 1st Grade for this game at the SCG seems an unlikely one, an instance of availability counting for more than ability. He was a Med III student who turned 23 half-way through that game; a resident at St Paul’s College, a graduate of The King’s School. At King’s from 1894 until 1900, he had been Captain of the School, a Colour Sergeant in the School Cadets, a member of the 1st XV for three seasons and, from 1897 until 1900, he played in the 1st XI. His cricket career was one where his scores were moderate and he did a little bowling. He was dependable rather than in any way spectacular.  In three seasons with the Sydney University Cricket Club, he did little of any significance with the bat. In 2nd Grade games for which records survive, his 18 innings produced 188 runs. He was more at home on the Rugby field and he represented the University’s 2nd XV  in the 1901 Premiership side before being awarded  Blues for Rugby in three seasons. He was, however, fully involved with the Cricket Club: Treasurer in 1902-03, a member of the Committee, 2nd XI selector and a Delegate to the Sports Union.

One of his older brothers, Norman Frederick White 1871-1957 had played successfully in 1st Grade in the 1890s when he was an Engineering student. In fact, he played in the Club’s first game of the new ‘Electoral Club’ competition in October 1893 (1st Grade cap no6) and continued to prosper until he finished in 1897: 543 runs, including 101 against South Sydney in November 1896, and 34 wickets. Norman was awarded Blues for Cricket, Rugby and Rowing and he rowed for NSW.

Another older brother, Cecil Alban White 1869-1940, became a District Court Judge in NSW after studying at Oxford University where he participated in Cricket, Rugby, Rowing and Athletics.

Their parents, William Edward White 1834-1913 who was a Church of England Archdeacon, and Amelia Una (nee Cox) 1842-1924 who was descended from one of the oldest pioneer families in NSW, married in 1869 and produced six sons and two daughters.

Mrs White’s grandfather was William Cox who had arrived in Sydney with the NSW Corps in 1800. Cox’s Road over the Blue Mountains was named in his honour.

A more extraordinary connection is that of the Australian actor and singer, Jason Donovan, who is a descendant of the Cox family through his mother.

Wilfred White graduated in 1907 and was admitted as a medical practitioner in July of that year. He worked at various hospitals and then at Merriwa after he married Roberta Olive (nee Baxter) in 1910 and when they lived with their two daughters at 3 Belgrave St Kogarah. Dr WJ White played golf enthusiastically but seemed to have left cricket and rugby behind him.

When he died in 1938, there was no mention by the cricket club of his death; a club that he had once represented in a solitary 1st Grade game 34 years before on two sun-blessed afternoons at the SCG.

Acknowledgements:

Max Bonnell.

Jenny Pearce, Archivist, The King’s School.

James Rodgers

A Review of Max Bonnell's 'Ebley Street Boys'

(Roger Page Cricket Books,2019)

Connections.

Max Bonnell draws us into the story of two future 1st Class cricketers who lived for a time in 1915 in the same street in Waverley, Ebley Street. They were born within a few weeks of each other. One was ‘single minded” who could be “awkward company”; the other was universally liked. One averaged 71.23 in his nine 1st Class games; the other averaged 207.They made their debuts for Paddington a season apart; both then played for Waverley. Both served in the Great War. One returned to Australia in July 1919; the other never came back. Francis Aloysius Joseph O’Keeffe eventually died in the North of England aged only 28 and is buried there. Norman Frank Callaway was blown to bits in France aged only 21 and has no known grave.

Max manages to easily intertwine the two stories. This is not just a book of two vaguely related lives of talented cricketers. This is a book of connections.

Callaway began his cricket career in Hay in Western NSW. One of his contemporaries was left-handed Jim Bogle. As a medical student, Bogle was to debut for Sydney University in the year that O’Keeffe and Callaway enlisted. In 1918-19 Bogle went on to amass an astounding 1090 runs in 1st Grade. On 1st class debut, he scored 145 followed by exactly 200 in his next game. Two young men from distant Hay had both scored double centuries for NSW.

When Callaway turned out for Waverley for the first game of what was his last season in Sydney Grade cricket in October 1915, he played against a medical student, Henry George Leahy, who was playing his first and only 1st Grade game for University. 27 year old Leahy “batted confidently and crisply” for 26. Callaway was untroubled in making 61. In 1916, both enlisted. Major HG Leahy returned and lived until 1940. Private NF Callaway, popular with everyone, “paid the supreme sacrifice” as one of his teammates wrote.

In the last 1st class game played in Australia until the end of the War, Callaway had hit a majestic 207 for NSW against Queensland at the SCG. He would play no more at that level. He is one of only three NSW cricketers to have died in the Great War. ‘Tibby’ Cotter and Gother Clarke were also both killed in 1917.

When O’Keeffe returned to cricket after the War, he averaged 99.33 in his last season in Waverley’s 1st Grade and 118 in his last 1st class season when he transferred to Victoria. In one of his last 1st class games he made a careful 180 and then took 5 wickets with his leg breaks.

What might have been?

Max wisely avoids speculation but he does wonder:

       “It isn’t difficult to imagine them playing together in the Australian team. O’Keeffe wearing the shine          from the ball so that Callaway could crack it away through the off side, two young men from Ebley Street bringing their contrasting talents and temperaments to the game’s biggest stage.”

Max has done meticulous and admirable work in bringing to life two fascinating cricketers of the early years of the 20th century. He writes crisply and his research is ferociously forensic.

He has previously written portraits of some of the well-known (Tom Garrett, Bert Ironmonger, Johnnie Taylor, Herbie Collins). Others should be better known but have faded from memory and history for various reasons (Sammy Jones, RC Allen, Roley Pope, Jack Marsh, John Kinloch). He has corrected some myths that have endured (JJ Ferris and ‘Tibby’ Cotter). Soon to be released is his appreciation of the Edwardian polymath, Leslie Poidevin.

And there’s this tribute, where Max has given Callaway and O’Keeffe enlightened release from the mists of time, through connections.

James Rodgers

A Singular Honour (Part 9)

                                            HENRY GEORGE LEAHY (pictured right)

HG Leahy was one of a kind.

He had been born at Thargomindah, 1000 kilometres west of Brisbane in 1888 and he was educated at St Joseph’s College, Nudgee,  in Brisbane.

Just after the death of his father, John Leahy (1854-1909), Speaker of the Queensland Legislative Assembly, HG Leahy began medical studies at Melbourne University and represented  for a number of seasons as full back in the Victorian Rugby side. In the 1911-12 cricket season, he played two games in 1st Grade for Melbourne University against Melbourne, when he was bowled for 12, and against North Melbourne when he didn’t bat.

In 1913, he continued his medical studies at Sydney University and threw himself into University life with some relish. He played competitive Billiards, was a 1st Grade baseballer and was Boxing Secretary of the Athletics Club. The gold medal that he won as welter weight champion in 1914 was later stolen from his home in Bridge Road Glebe and was, apparently, never returned. In the intervarsity boxing team of that year he knocked out his opponent from Melbourne.

He had moved from rural Queensland to Brisbane to Melbourne and then Sydney before he represented SUCC. In 1914-15, he is listed as playing in 2nd and 3rd Grades and it is known that he played 2 innings for 31 runs in 2nd Grade.

In round 1 of the 1915-16 season, HG Leahy was selected in a vastly under-strength University 1st Grade side to play Waverley at University Oval (1st Grade cap no143). Many undergraduates had enlisted and the Club’s golden era was behind it. 1st Grade had been Premiers in 1913-14 but in 1915-16, only CR Campling remained from that great side. Nevertheless, University’s first day of the new season was promising. Les Best’s 69 ensured that University would post a competitive total and HG Leahy, coming in at number 8, “batted confidently and crisply” before being caught from Ward for 26. Stubborn partnerships on the second day took Waverley past the University total six down.

For Waverley, 19 year old Norman Callaway made 61, the first innings in a productive 1st Grade season that produced 705 runs at 58.5. In February 1915, he had made his debut for NSW against Queensland at the SCG. Queensland was disposed of for 137 but NSW was 3 for 17 when Callaway joined University’s Frank Farrer. At stumps Callaway was 125 not out and on the next day he went on to a scintillating 207 in 214 minutes with 26 fours on a slow outfield. This was to be his only 1st class match and the last interstate match before the Great War caused the cancellation of games. At the time, he was only the second to score a double century on 1st class debut. Later in the 1915-16 season, he enlisted and he was killed at the Second Battle of Bullencourt on 3 May 1917. He has no known grave. He was the first of only three NSW cricketers killed in the Great War. Dr Gother Clarke died on 12 October 1917 and the Australian fast bowler ‘Tibby’ Cotter on 31 October 1917.

HG Leahy enlisted in March 1916 just after graduation at about the same time as Calloway. But Leahy was aged 28, a medical doctor promoted to Major who served in Egypt, Palestine and Beersheba. He returned to Sydney in 1920 after post graduate studies in Surgery in London after the Armistice.

On the card detailing his war service for the Sydney University Union records, Dr Leahy wrote emphatically: “No wounds. No ailments. No regrets!”

He set up practice in Macquarie Street in 1921 but persistent heart trouble forced him to less intense practice at Barmedman by 1939. The young surgeon played golf and contributed pieces for ‘The Bulletin’ and ‘Smith’s Weekly’.

But he had apparently played his last cricket game in 1916 and he died at Temora on 1 April 1940, aged only 52.

He had played once for University in 1st Grade. One innings for 26. And he crossed paths briefly with the tragic Norman Calloway.

There are lingering questions:

1.       Why did he start Medicine at Melbourne University and then transfer to Sydney?

2.       Does he have any descendants? He was the only son but he had four sisters.

Acknowledgements to Max Bonnell.

James Rodgers

Blue Award - Charlie Dummer

2021 Blue Award - Charlie Dummer

This award recognises student-athletes who have excelled academically while achieving outstanding results in their sport at the highest level.

Charlie was ready to fire from the get go, notching a half-century at more than a run a ball in his first innings of season 2020/21.

It seemed to only get better for the opening batsmen as he finished the season with 6 half-centuries and a massive 666 runs!

With the first round of the 2021/22 season just around the corner, Charlie is ready to pick up where he left off!

A huge congratulations on achieving this award! Let’s go again this season.

A Singular Honour (Part 8)

                                                              TP STRICKLAND 1875-1955

When you next visit Melbourne and when you next hop on a Melbourne tram, tip your hat to Tom Percival Strickland.

His senior cricket career was brief and mostly insignificant but he straddled the old ‘Sydney Club Cricket’ competition and the revitalized ‘Sydney Electoral Cricket’, the forerunner of Grade Cricket or Premier Cricket.

Aged 17 and recently enrolled in Engineering at Sydney University, Strickland appeared twice in the University 1sts in 1892-93, the last season of Club Cricket, and one more time in 1893-94, at the dawn of Electoral Cricket. (1st Grade cap no17). His four innings in the 1sts realized just 14 runs: 6,4,0 and 4. He played no more at that level. He achieved more, however, outside the boundaries of the cricket fields.

From 1887 until 1893, he had flourished in the classrooms and on the cricket fields of Sydney Grammar School.

In the 1891-92 SGS 1st XI, he batted early in the order. But for “nervousness”, he “would have been one of our best batsmen.” He played straight drives crisply and cut the ball sweetly. In 1892-93, just before going up to the University, he again opened the batting for SGS and in a low-scoring season, he was considered the best batsman in the school.

In the Matriculation Exams of 1893, he achieved Class I passes in Latin, German and French and Class II in Maths. Armed with three scholarships and a Gold Medal for Proficiency at the Senior Examinations of 1892, he enrolled in the Department of Engineering.

His family lived at the majestic sandstone home, ‘Dun Aros’ in Crescent Rd Manly. While he had two sisters, he was the only son of Annie (nee Mason) and Thomas Arthur Strickland 1835-1888, a Sydney merchant, partner in Young and Lark in Moore St. His father’s tragic death, drowned in a boating accident outside North Head on Sunday 3 June 1888, forced 12 year old Tom into becoming ‘head of the house.’ Mr Strickland had left home with a ‘servant’ early in the morning to go fishing in a dinghy. A sudden squall overturned the boat and, even though he was a strong swimmer, Mr Strickland drowned as he struck out for shore to get help for his servant. Tom was required to give evidence before the Coroner’s Court which convened a few days later.

Tom went back to school, now responsible for his widowed mother and his sisters and he responded with maturity in his studies and with increasing prowess on the cricket fields.

When a Manly side of 22 was selected to play at Manly Oval against the touring English Test side captained by the formidable WG Grace just before school resumed in February 1892, 16 year old Tom was chosen. But he was bowled by the left arm slows of Bobby Peel for 0. Peel was to take 1754 wickets in 1st class cricket and 102 wickets in only 20 Tests before misbehaviour under the influence of alcohol all but terminated his career. Manly’s XXII scraped together 98 and the Englishmen won comfortably. What stories might Tom have told his Grammar classmates at College Street when he returned to school? He’d played against the legendary WG and had faced the enigmatic Bobby Peel.

His reputation as a cricketer reached the University selectors who chose him in the 1sts’ side to play Carlton in March 1893 when he had just begun attending lectures. The University 1sts were held together only by the consistency of their veteran captain, Tom Garrett. On University no1 Oval, TP Strickland batted at number 8 and made 6 but Garrett’s 90 was more than half the total.  Carlton replied promisingly at first but Garrett’s damaging bowling earned him 6 for 30 and University led by 72. When University batted again, Strickland batted at first drop but was bowled for 4. Nevertheless, he was selected for the next match, against Belvedere. This time, University’s collapse, was complete. Garrett made 1. No one got to double figures and University were knocked over for 31. Strickland was out for 0. When Belvedere reached 0 for 60, rain set in a reduced University’s misery  to a 1st innings loss only.

Strickland prospered in Civil Engineering and prepared for another cricket season. 1893-94 was the first season of Electoral Cricket but this did not seem to affect the University side significantly as they were able to select students, graduates and some who were neither. When 18 year old TP Strickland was chosen for the round 3 match against East Sydney at the SCG, he took the field behind 35 year old Tom Garrett and some other older undergraduates such as the 22 year old Engineering student Norman White.

Again he batted at 8; again he failed with 4; again University was bowled out cheaply, for 136. But something different happened. On the second day, Easts lost their last 7 for 30 (Garrett 5-34) and University had a slender lead which they had increased to 254 when stumps were drawn. 3rd Year Medicine student, Erskine Robison was 113 not out, University’s first century in Grade Cricket. He was to die only six years later while working in a TB sanitorium in Germany. The third day was washed out and University remained the only side to defeat the Premiers, East Sydney.  Strickland had played his last 1st Grade game but he continued to score runs in 2nd Grade and to act as Honorary Secretary of the Club for two seasons and to play tennis and to win glittering academic prizes, When he graduated, B Eng in March 1897, it was with 1st Class Honours and with the Gold Medal.

He was awarded a scholarship to McGill University in Montreal where he earned a Masters in Science before working for some time in New York. Returning to Sydney in 1902, he was appointed Assistant Engineer of the NSW Government Railways and Tramways and he married Gertrude Emily Hayes 1875-1961. They were to have three daughters.

From 1921 to 1938, Strickland was Chief Engineer of the Melbourne and Metropolitan Tramways Board. He inherited a ramshackle 216 trams with an astounding 21 different designs and he set about designing a new standard tram. The ‘W Class’ tram was in operation until 1969 and a successor the ‘W8 Class’ which survives.

He made just 14 runs in 4 innings for University 1sts and he played just one ‘1st Grade’ game but when he died aged 79, many Melbournians tipped their hat to him.

JAMES RODGERS

A Singular Honour (Part 7)

Professor WC Gissane CBE lived and worked for most of his adult life in England, from 1927 until his death 54 years later.

From 1941, he was the first Clinical Director and Surgeon-In-Chief of the Birmingham Accident Hospital where he did invaluable work in reducing the number of road and industrial accidents. A medical device was even named after him. ‘The Critical Angle of Gissane’ helps determine the presence of a calcaneous fracture on a lateral foot x-ray on a radiograph. From 1964, he was Honorary Professor of Accident Surgery and, in recognition of his services to Medicine, he was awarded the CBE (Commander of the British Empire) in 1964. He was a Vice President of the Warwickshire County Cricket Club.

In Sydney, he had played one 1st Grade game of cricket.

Or had he?

He had been born in Redfern on 26 April 1898, the son of a tea merchant, and he completed his school education at St Ignatius’ College Riverview from 1915 to 1917. He was appointed one of five College Prefects and was a confident speaker in the debating teams. He played for the 1st XV Rugby team as a winger and for the 1st XI cricket team as vice-captain and a batsman/keeper. In the 1st XV competition, Riverview finished second, beaten only by Sydney Grammar, and fair haired Gissane earned praise for “handling and kicking” and criticism for being “weak at tackling.” He was small in stature but was to grow to 5 feet 9 inches over the next few years. In the 1st XI, captained by Jim Sullivan (1899-1993), a future Sydney University player, Gissane was a reliable batsman early in the order and his figures were creditable, 491 runs @32. Both Sullivan and Gissane were selected for the Combined GPS 1st XI that played Sydney University in December 1916 on University no1 Oval in front of a few hundred spectators. The GPS side was thoroughly outplayed as University rattled up 8 for 288 in reply to the GPS total of only 110. Gissane, batting down the order, shaped nicely for 11. University’s rather casual attitude drew sharp comment from The Referee. The University players were inexcusably late back from lunch and had left the schoolboys and the umpires waiting. Gissane kept wickets untidily.

Nevertheless, when Gissane came to study Medicine there, he turned out for the Club’s 2nd Grade in 1919-20 where he scored steadily, 173 runs @21.6, including a commanding 74 against Randwick. He also represented the Sydney University Football (Rugby) Club’s 2nd Grade side. From then on, his appearances in the University teams were confined mainly to 2nd and 3rd Grades where, in cricket, he scored some runs regularly and even took up bowling with some success in 3rd Grade. He worked diligently at his studies.

When Malcolm Jagleman was unavailable for the 1921-22  game on 8-15 October, Gissane was summoned to University no1 Oval to keep wickets for 1st Grade against Balmain (SUCC 1st Grade cap no190). The first day was affected by weather and Balmain batted strongly to go to stumps at 2 for 86. Gissane took the first catch from the bowling of Albert Kendall when the future Test player, ‘Hammy’ Love, snicked one. On the second day, Balmain collapsed for 143 and University batted out the day to finish at 9 for 243. Ray Boyce (76) and Max Hesslein (74) led the way but Gissane, batting at number 9 was bowled by Storey for 2.

Gissane went back to 2nd Grade and then 3rds and onto graduation and to England where he did further studies, practised Medicine and  married a nurse, Marion Dorothy (nee Mason), in 1938. They were to have one son, William (1940-2015) who became a chemical engineer.

What hasn’t been realized until recently was that before brief war service and before beginning studies in Medicine, Gissane had actually played two other 1st Grade games. But not for University! In March 1918, when he was living in Auburn, he played for Wests against North Sydney and batted at number 3 on his 1st Grade debut before being bowled by the ageless Clarrie Hogue for 11. Then, next week, against Sydney, Gissane was caught for 6 and that was the end of his 1st Grade career with Wests. 2 innings, 17 runs.

Seven months later, Gissane enlisted in the AIF at South Head. He had grown to a size where he was to box in the light heavyweight division at University. The Armistice was signed two weeks after Gissane enlisted and he soon swapped his military uniform for an academic gown.

Jim Sullivan admired him. Years later, he referred to ‘Bill’ Gissane as a “tidy cricketer”, a “good cobber” and a “smart cove.”

One footnote to his brief 1st Grade career was that he came up against two of the most enduring slow bowlers who have ever played in Australia.

When he made his 1st Grade debut for Wests in 1918, he was bowled by North Sydney’s Clarrie Hogue who was then less than half-way through his astonishing career. Hogue had first played in 1887 and he was to continue to play for 72 years until finally putting his creams away in 1959.

When Gissane played his one 1st Grade game with University in 1921, the peripatetic ‘H Ironmonger’, who had come up from Victoria at the start of the season, opened the bowling. This was ‘Bert’, ironically nicknamed ‘Dainty’, Ironmonger who consistently claimed to be younger than he really was. During the 1921-22 season, he turned 39 but was yet to play Test cricket where he took 74 cheap wickets. When he played the last of his 14 Tests for Australia in the infamous ‘Bodyline’ series of 1932-33, he had already, extraordinarily, celebrated his fiftieth birthday. He played on in club cricket at a reasonable level until he was 60.

Jim Sullivan ensured that Bill Gissane, his classmate and teammate, was not to be forgotten.

Here is a little more about a man who played one 1st Grade game for University in a remarkable career of service.

JAMES RODGERS