YOUNGEST TEST PLAYER

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20930, 8 January 1938, Page 7

YOUNGEST TEST PLAYER

Several times recently I have been asked who was the youngest cricketer ever to play for Australia in a Test match. I was asked the question again at the Collingwood ground on Saturday. The answer is Tom Garrett, of New South Wales—the sole survivor of , the first Test, played at Melbourne in I March. 1877. Born on July 16, 1858, ! Garrett was only 18 when he played in I the game. In the first innings Charlie i Bannerman played his memorable innings for 165 (retired hurt), and Garrett 1 was second top scorer with a modest 18. says a writer in the Melbourne j “Globe.” | Some of the questioners appeared to think that Clem Hill was the youngest. . but they were confusing an innings for i 150 that he played against A. E. Stod-

dart’s team in 1894-5, just after his 18th birthday, with his first Test appearance. As a fact, his first Test match was in England in 1896, when he was 19. That score of 150 was supposed at the time to have been made on his 18th birthday, but it was subsequently discovered that he was a few days older. He was born on March 13. 1877, and was 19 years and 3 months old when he played his first test at Lord's ground. Tom Garrett visited England with the first Australian team in 1878, having his 20th birthday there, and again in 1882 and 1886. He was a very fine all-rounder, noted chiefly in his younger days for his bowling, and in his later years for his batting.

As a bowler he was one of the steady, good-length type, from whom it was always difficult to score. F. K. Spofiorth, of course, was Australia’s great bowler of his earily days, but he and others played their assisting parts well. Although he took only 38 wickets in the eleven-a-side games of 1878, he had a better average than Spofforth, who took 107, Garrett’s costing 10 runs each, and Spofforth’s 11. On his second visit in 1882. he was associated with what is regarded by many as the greatest bowling combination ever sent by Australia to England

—Spofforth, H. F. Boyle, G. E. Palmer, and Garrett. Each of these four bowlers took more than 100 wickets. Garrett’s 128 being the smallest total, and his average of 13 being the worst of the four.

In 1886 he took 123 wickets, only George Giffen having a greater total. It will thus be seen what a great bowler he was for Australia.

In his later years he lost mast of his bowling ability, but he ended his career as a batsman in the New South Wales Eleven. When a young man he was a participant in the remarkable game at Sydney in 1881-2, when New South Wales made the then world’s record score of 775 against Victoria. W. L. Murdoch in that innings scored 321, Garrett 163 and S. P. Jones 109. Murdoch’s score at that time ranked second only to one of 344 made by W. C. Grace for M.C.C. v. Kent at Canterbury in 1876.