Anthony Roy MacGibbon (28 August 1924 – 6 April 2010) was a cricketer who played 26

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for

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in the 1950s. MacGibbon was a useful lower-order right-hand batsman and a right-arm fast-medium bowler who led the attack for his country for most of the 1950s. Tall and able to move the ball off the seam, MacGibbon was known as a wholehearted cricketer in what was, for most of his career, one of the weakest teams in international cricket.

Early career

MacGibbon played

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for

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from 1947 to 1948, and was in the trial match for the 1949 New Zealand tour to England, though he was not selected.

International career

He made his Test debut against the 1950–51 England touring team but achieved little in the two matches, making 32 runs in four innings and failing to take a wicket. He was not much more successful in just one match against the touring

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two years later, though he did take his first Test wicket:

Roy McLean Roy Alastair McLean (9 July 1930 – 26 August 2007) was a South African cricketer who played in 40 Test matches between 1951 and 1964. A stroke-playing middle-order batsman, he scored over 2,000 Test runs, but made 11 ducks in 73 Test innings. ...

. But when New Zealand visited South Africa the following year he cut down the length of his run-up and was the team's most successful bowler, taking 22 wickets at the respectable average of under 21 runs per wicket. A second tour, to Pakistan and India in 1955–56, brought him less success as a bowler, but he played in all eight Tests and hit two 50s. Back home in New Zealand later that season, he was a member of the team that recorded New Zealand's first-ever Test victory against

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; when he bowled Alphonso Roberts in the first innings he became the first New Zealander to take 50 Test wickets. R.T. Brittenden, ''Great Days in New Zealand Cricket'', A.H. & A.W. Reed, Wellington, 1958, p. 189. MacGibbon's final Tests were played on the 1958 tour to England, when he was one of the few New Zealand players to come out of a disastrous tour in a wet summer with an enhanced reputation. In the first Test, he took five wickets in an innings for the only time in his international career: his five for 64 dismissed England for 221 in their first innings and he took three more wickets in the second innings, though England won the match comfortably enough. His 66 in the fourth Test at

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was not just the highest score of his own Test career, it was also New Zealand's highest of the series. On the tour as a whole, he scored 670 runs and took 73 wickets.

After cricket

MacGibbon retired from Test cricket after the 1958 tour, and stayed in the UK to study

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Durham University , mottoeng = Her foundations are upon the holy hills (Psalm 87:1) , established = (university status) , type = Public , academic_staff = 1,830 (2020) , administrative_staff = 2,640 (2018/19) , chancellor = Sir Thomas Allen , vice_chan ...

. He played in New Zealand domestic cricket until 1961–62. He died on 6 April 2010.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Macgibbon, Tony 1924 births 2010 deaths New Zealand cricketers New Zealand Test cricketers Canterbury cricketers Alumni of Durham University 20th-century New Zealand engineers South Island cricketers