Leonard "Jock" Livingston (3 May 1920 – 16 January 1998) was an Australian

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 ...

er who played most of his

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is one of three or more days' scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officiall ...

in England.

Cricket career

Livingston was a hard-hitting left-handed batsman and an occasional wicketkeeper. He played five times for

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

with some success, but was not picked for the all-conquering 1948

Australian Australian(s) may refer to: Australia * Australia, a country * Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia ** European Australians ** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists ** Aboriginal Au ...

tour to England, and turned instead to

Central Lancashire Cricket League The Central Lancashire Cricket League (CLCL) was a fifteen team cricket league, traditionally based in Lancashire and the West Riding of Yorkshire. It was then based in Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire. The league ran competitions at First T ...

cricket, where he played for Royton Cricket Club, marrying a local girl while there. In 1949–50, when

Marylebone Cricket Club Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) is a cricket club founded in 1787 and based since 1814 at Lord's Cricket Ground, which it owns, in St John's Wood, London. The club was formerly the governing body of cricket retaining considerable global influence ...

(MCC) declined to tour India, the former

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 ...

wicketkeeper

George Duckworth George Duckworth (9 May 1901 – 5 January 1966) was a professional cricketer who played first-class cricket for Lancashire and England. Duckworth, who won his cricketing fame as a wicket-keeper, was born and died in Warrington, Lancashire, an ...

assembled a Commonwealth side consisting of Lancashire League players plus a handful of English and West Indian cricketers. Livingston captained the side, which included

Bill Alley William Edward Alley (3 February 1919 – 26 November 2004) was a cricketer who played 400 first-class matches for New South Wales, Somerset and a Commonwealth XI. Whilst in Australia, Alley was also a middleweight boxer, and was undefe ...

George Tribe George Edward Tribe (4 October 1920 – 5 April 2009) was an Australian cricketer who played in three Test matches from 1946 to 1947, as well as an Australian rules footballer with the Footscray Football Club in the VFL. Cricket career Trib ...

and

Frank Worrell Sir Frank Mortimer Maglinne Worrell (1 August 1924 – 13 March 1967), sometimes referred to by his nickname of Tae, was a West Indies cricketer and Jamaican senator. A stylish right-handed batsman and useful left-arm seam bowler, he became fam ...

. The tour was a big success and the side played five unofficial "Tests" against full Indian Test sides. At the end of the tour, Livingston was signed as a batsman by

Northamptonshire Northamptonshire (; abbreviated Northants.) is a county in the East Midlands of England. In 2015, it had a population of 723,000. The county is administered by two unitary authorities: North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire. It is ...

as part of the county's policy to import talented cricketers, a policy that brought in the England captain Freddie Brown from

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...

. Livingston was an immediate success, scoring 1966 runs in his first season, and over the next eight years he was often near the top of the English batting averages. In the three seasons from 1954, he scored more than 2000 runs per season, with a best performance of 2269 runs in 1954 at an average of more than 55 runs per innings. He had a less successful season in 1957 when the county side finished second in the

County Championship The County Championship (referred to as the LV= Insurance County Championship for sponsorship reasons) is the domestic first-class cricket competition in England and Wales and is organised by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB). It bec ...

, its highest ever placing, and he retired at the end of that season, reappearing in just a couple of later less serious matches, the last in 1964. Livingston's value was not just in the runs that he scored, but also the style in which he scored them: in a period when defensive batting was commonplace, he hit the ball hard and often, and was no respecter of reputations. His presence at Northamptonshire also attracted other talented players, including fellow Australians Tribe and Jack Manning and the wicketkeeper

Keith Andrew Keith Vincent Andrew (15 December 1929 – 27 December 2010) was an English cricketer who played in two Tests, in 1954–55 and in 1963. Life and career Born in Greenacres, Oldham, Lancashire, Andrew was a fine wicketkeeper who might have play ...

Rugby league

Livingston was also a talented

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as just rugby league and sometimes football, footy, rugby or league, is a full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular field measuring 68 metres (75 yards) wide and 112 ...

player and spent three seasons playing with South Sydney in the

NSWRL The New South Wales Rugby League (NSWRL) is the governing body of rugby league in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory and is a member of the Australian Rugby League Commission. It was formed in Sydney on 8 August 1907 and was ...

from 1941 to 1943.

Personal and later life

In retirement, he worked for the bat-making company

Gray-Nicolls Gray-Nicolls is an English cricket equipment and clothing brand and is a subsidiary of Grays International. Formed as a result of merger between two companies, Grays and Nicolls, the company is based in Robertsbridge, East Sussex. Gray-Nicolls ma ...

. He was

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

References

External links

Wisden ''Wisden Cricketers' Almanack'', or simply ''Wisden'', colloquially the Bible of Cricket, is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom. The description "bible of cricket" was first used in the 1930s by Alec Waugh in a ...

1951 to 1958 editions
CricketArchive: Jock Livingston
{{DEFAULTSORT:Livingston, Jock 1920 births 1998 deaths Australian cricketers Australian rugby league players Commonwealth XI cricketers Cricketers from Sydney Jewish Australian sportspeople Jewish cricketers Jewish rugby league players Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers New South Wales cricketers North v South cricketers Northamptonshire cricketers Rugby league players from Sydney South Sydney Rabbitohs players

Cricket career

Rugby league

Personal and later life

See also

References

External links