Big Six cricket dispute of 1912
Encyclopedia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. Six of Australia's leading cricketers refused an invitation to tour England for the 1912 Triangular Tournament
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 six players were Warwick Armstrong
Warwick Armstrong
Warwick Windridge Armstrong 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, winning eight Tests and drawing two...
, Vernon Ransford
Vernon Ransford
Vernon Seymour Ransford was an Australian cricketer who played in 20 Tests between 1907 and 1912. His best series was the 1909 tour of England when he topped the Australian batting averages, helped by a career best score of 143 not out. The following year he was a Wisden Cricketer of the Year...
, Victor Trumper
Victor Trumper
Victor Thomas Trumper 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 unplayable. Archie MacLaren said of him, "Compared to Victor I was a cab-horse to a Derby...
, Tibby Cotter
Tibby Cotter
Albert "Tibby" Cotter was an Australian cricketer who played in 21 Tests between 1904 and 1912....
, Hanson Carter, and Clem Hill
Clem Hill
Clement "Clem" Hill 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...
. The dispute was the culmination of a series of arguments that followed the establishment of the Australian Board of Control for International Cricket
Cricket Australia
Cricket Australia, formerly known as the Australian Cricket Board, is the governing body for professional and amateur cricket in Australia. It was originally formed in 1905 as 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.
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
South Australian Cricket Association
The South Australian Cricket Association is the peak body for the sport of cricket in South Australia. The association runs Adelaide Oval and the Southern Redbacks based in Adelaide, South Australia. SACA is the controlling body for the South Australian Grade Cricket League...
and several unhappy members of Melbourne Cricket Club
Melbourne Cricket Club
The Melbourne Cricket Club is a sporting club based in Melbourne, Australia. It was founded in 1838 and is regarded as the oldest sporting club in Australia....
. 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
World Series Cricket was a break away professional cricket competition staged between 1977 and 1979 and organised by Kerry Packer for his Australian television network, Nine Network. The matches ran in opposition to established international cricket...
.
The 1911–12 Ashes tour
The Ashes
The Ashes is a Test cricket series played between England and Australia. It is one of the most celebrated rivalries in international cricket and dates back to 1882. It is currently played biennially, alternately in the United Kingdom and Australia. Cricket being a summer sport, and the venues...
against England took place amid a backdrop 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 Laver
Frank Jonas Laver Frank Jonas Laver Frank Jonas Laver (7 December 1869, Castlemaine, Victoria 24 September 1919, East Melbourne, Victoria was an Australian cricketer who played in 15 Tests from 1899 to 1909....
was appointed.
Matters came to a head when Clem Hill
Clem Hill
Clement "Clem" Hill 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...
, 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
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 few batsmen do bowl occasionally, most players are skilled in only one of the two disciplines and are considered specialists...
Charlie Macartney 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
Frank Iredale
Francis Adams Iredale was an Australian Test cricketer who played 14 Tests between 1888 and 1902...
(another selector) agrees with you as to Macartney's inclusion, I favour yourself standing down not Minnett
Roy Minnett
Roy Baldwin Minnett was an Australian cricketer who played in 9 Tests from 1911 to 1912.His two older brothers, Leslie and Rupert, both played for New South Wales....
." 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?"
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
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....
in England, rather than Frank Laver
Frank Laver
Frank Jonas Laver Frank Jonas Laver Frank Jonas Laver (7 December 1869, Castlemaine, Victoria 24 September 1919, East Melbourne, Victoria was an Australian cricketer who played in 15 Tests from 1899 to 1909....
, 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
Syd Gregory
Sydney Edward Gregory , 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 during a career spanning 1890 to 1912...
, 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 Haigh
Gideon Clifford Jeffrey Davidson Haigh is an English-born Australian journalist, who writes about sport and business. He was born in London of a Yorkshire father and an Australian mother, and was raised in Geelong, Victoria.- Career :Haigh has been writing about sport and business for over...
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."