The Big Six cricket dispute of 1912 was a confrontation between the administrators and players of the sport of
cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...
in Australia. Six of Australia's leading
cricketers
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...
refused an invitation to tour England for the
1912 Triangular Tournament
The 1912 Triangular Tournament was a Test cricket competition played between Australia, England and South Africa, the only Test-playing nations at the time.
The ultimate winners of the tournament were England, with four wins in their six matches ...
. The six players were
Warwick Armstrong
Warwick Windridge Armstrong (22 May 1879 – 13 July 1947) was an Australian cricketer who played 50 Test matches between 1902 and 1921. An all-rounder, he captained Australia in ten Test matches between 1920 and 1921, and was undefeated, winn ...
,
Vernon Ransford
Vernon Seymour Ransford (20 March 1885 – 19 March 1958) was an Australian cricketer who played in 20 Test matches between 1907 and 1912.
Ransford was a smooth and stylish left-handed batsman who could score with ease all round the wicket or ...
,
Victor Trumper
Victor Thomas Trumper (2 November 1877 – 28 June 1915) was an Australian cricketer known as the most stylish and versatile batsman of the Golden Age of cricket, capable of playing match-winning innings on wet wickets his contemporaries found ...
,
Tibby Cotter
Albert "Tibby" Cotter (3 December 1883 – 31 October 1917) was an Australian cricketer who played in 21 Test matches between 1904 and 1912. He served in World War I with the First Australian Imperial Force and was killed in action in the moun ...
,
Hanson Carter
Hanson "Sammy" Carter (15 March 1878 – 8 June 1948) was a cricketer who played for Australia and New South Wales.
Career
Carter attended Sydney Boys High School in 1894. A wicket-keeper, he made his debut for New South Wales in 1897–98, a ...
, and
Clem Hill
Clement "Clem" Hill (18 March 18775 September 1945) was an Australian cricketer who played 49 Test matches as a specialist batsman between 1896 and 1912. He captained the Australian team in ten Tests, winning five and losing five. A prolifi ...
. The dispute was the culmination of a series of arguments that followed the establishment of the Australian
Board of Control for International Cricket in 1905. The ramifications of the dispute were far-reaching and affected the destiny of Australian cricket over the ensuing decades.
Causes
The immediate cause of the dispute was the insistence by the players that they had a right to select the managers of Australian cricket teams touring overseas. However the dispute was a wider one; a power struggle over who would have access to the revenue these tours raised. The players had the support of the
South Australian Cricket Association
The South Australian Cricket Association (SACA) is the peak body for the sport of cricket in South Australia. The association administers the Southern Redbacks based in Adelaide. SACA is the controlling body for the South Australian Grade Cri ...
and several unhappy members of
Melbourne Cricket Club
The Melbourne Cricket Club (MCC) is a sports club based in Melbourne, Australia. It was founded in 1838 and is one of the oldest sports clubs in Australia.
The MCC is responsible for management and development of the Melbourne Cricket Ground ...
. The Board was dubbed tyrannical at rowdy public meetings, pamphleteers abounded, and funds were raised to send an independent team, inclusive of the Big Six, to England.
The boycott was initially successful in securing the support of public opinion and the performance and antics of the replacement team caused some embarrassment for the Board. Despite this, in the end the Board, supported by Queensland, was able to gain complete control of revenues and appointments for future tours, and the 1912 team went to England without the dissenters. The players were relegated to a subservient role that would not change until the next player rebellion in the 1970s that saw the establishment of
World Series Cricket
World Series Cricket (WSC) was a commercial professional cricket competition staged between 1977 and 1979 which was organised by Kerry Packer and his Australian television network, Nine Network. WSC ran in commercial competition to establishe ...
.
The 1911–12
Ashes tour against
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
took place in an environment of hostility between the players and the new Board. Contrary to previous arrangements when the Board was established in 1905, the Board of Control made plans to usurp the commonly accepted rights of the players to appoint the team manager when touring England. In response, the group of senior players, "the Big Six" threatened to withdraw from the next tour, to take place in 1912, unless their choice,
Frank Laver
Frank Jonas Laver (7 December 1869 – 24 September 1919) was an Australian cricketer and baseball player. He played in 15 Test matches between 1899 and 1909 and visited England as a player and team manager on four occasions. An accomplished p ...
was appointed.
[Haigh, pp. 215–217.]
Effects
Matters came to a head when
Clem Hill
Clement "Clem" Hill (18 March 18775 September 1945) was an Australian cricketer who played 49 Test matches as a specialist batsman between 1896 and 1912. He captained the Australian team in ten Tests, winning five and losing five. A prolifi ...
, the Australian captain and member of the Big Six sent a telegram to fellow selector,
Peter McAlister, urging the inclusion of the New South Wales
all-rounder
An all-rounder is a cricketer who regularly performs well at both batting and bowling. Although all bowlers must bat and quite a handful of batsmen do bowl occasionally, most players are skilled in only one of the two disciplines and are consi ...
Charlie Macartney
Charles George Macartney (27 June 1886 – 9 September 1958) was an Australian cricketer who played in 35 Test matches between 1907 and 1926. He was known as "The Governor-General" in reference to his authoritative batting style and his flamb ...
in the team for the Fourth Test in Melbourne.
The reply from McAlister – a member of the Board of Control to Hill's request was "...Still opposed to Macartney's inclusion. If
Iredale (another selector) agrees with you as to Macartney's inclusion, I favour yourself standing down not
Minnett."
At a meeting held after the Test, the Board of Control rejected the players' petition and declared that the manager would be appointed by the Board alone. At a "special meeting" two weeks later, the Board appointed George Crouch from Queensland to the position.
The following day, 3 February 1912, the selection committee met in Sydney to decide the team for the Fourth Test. It was the first time Hill and McAlister had met since the exchange of telegrams. The pair exchanged insults with McAlister sharply criticising Hill's captaincy. Hill retorted, "In England, Armstrong wouldn't play under you. Did you ever win any except second rate games?"
[Robinson, pp. 116–126.]
McAlister replied, "I am a better captain than Trumper, Armstrong and yourself put together. You are the worst captain I have ever seen,"
Hill then warned McAlister to stop insulting him, McAlister repeated the remark. Losing control, Hill struck McAlister a blow across the face. The two then grappled for around ten minutes.
Blood was drawn, staining their clothes and splashing on the other men present, Iredale and secretary Sydney Smith. At one stage, fearing that one or both combatants would fall through the window and onto the street, Smith grabbed hold of Hill's coat-tails. The fight ended with a bloody McAlister lying on the floor and Hill, unmarked standing over him. Hill told Smith he could no longer work with McAlister and was asked to put his resignation in writing; the Board accepted it that evening.
When the Board announced that George Crouch would be manager of the Australian team for
1912 Triangular Tournament
The 1912 Triangular Tournament was a Test cricket competition played between Australia, England and South Africa, the only Test-playing nations at the time.
The ultimate winners of the tournament were England, with four wins in their six matches ...
in England, rather than
Frank Laver
Frank Jonas Laver (7 December 1869 – 24 September 1919) was an Australian cricketer and baseball player. He played in 15 Test matches between 1899 and 1909 and visited England as a player and team manager on four occasions. An accomplished p ...
, outright rebellion ensued. Armstrong, Hill, Trumper, Carter, Cotter and Ransford announced that they would be unavailable to join the touring party. The team, under the captaincy of
Syd Gregory
Sydney Edward Gregory (14 April 1870 – 1 August 1929), sometimes known as Edward Sydney Gregory, was a cricketer who played for New South Wales and Australia. At the time of his retirement, he had played a world-record 58 Test matches duri ...
, left without these players. The tour was not a success on any front: the Australians winning only eight games and losing nine in a wet season and Crouch on return to Australia reported to the Board that "some of the players had conducted themselves so badly in England as to lead to the team being socially ostracised."
Nevertheless, as
Gideon Haigh
Gideon Clifford Jeffrey Davidson Haigh (born 29 December 1965) is an English-born Australian journalist and non-fiction author who writes about sport (especially cricket), business and crime in Australia. He was born in London, was raised in Ge ...
has written, "the deed was done: a national governing body and a species of democracy had been imposed on Australian cricket, although at the cost of reducing its players to serfdom."
[Haigh 2004.]
References
Bibliography
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*—. "The board takes control, 1906." ''
The Sydney Morning Herald
''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily compact newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and owned by Nine. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuously published newspaper ...
'', 6 February 2004.
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External links
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