The best cricketer ever to have been born in Scotland first saw the light of day 100 years ago this Saturday. He was ARCHIBALD JACKSON, always known as Archie,destined to become the lost genius and tragic hero of Australian Cricket, who was born in Rutherglen on the outskirts of Glasgow on 5 September 1909.
The third child, and only son, of Margaret and Alexander (Sandy) Jackson, he was just over a year younger than his great contemporary Donald George Bradman. Sandy, a brickworks manager, had spent his childhood in Australia and, when Archie was approaching his fourth birthday, decided that his family's future lay Down Under.
There they settled in the harbour side suburb of Balmain, now a much sought after middle class area, but then very much the home of the dock workers of Cockatoo Island. The Jackson family home was always a happy one but life was hard and it is certainly possible that the conditions did little to make young Archie immune from the privations he was to suffer.
He soon showed a real talent for both cricket and football, the latter game was already in his blood, his uncle and cousin both being prominent players in the Scottish and English Leagues. It was in the summer game, however, that Archie shone. Soon into the junior sides at the Balmain club, he attracted the attention of the captain, Australian leg spinner and future cricket writer Arthur Mailey, who had him in the first grade side aged 15.
Another Balmain supporter was the politician and lawyer HV "Doc" Evatt, later to be Deputy Prime Minister and President of the United Nations General Assembly. "Doc" provided much needed financial assistance, without which Archie might not have been able to progress. He was fortunate also in his employment. Unable to hold down his first job in a warehouse because of his increasing cricket commitments, he was given a job by Alan Kippax, stylish Test batsman, in his sports' store.
Archie was a classical batsman himself. So quick footed that he seemed to glide across the ground, he reminded many of Victor Trumper with the sheer beauty of his stroke play. He was also said to greatly resemble Kippax himself, even batting with sleeves rolled down almost to his wrists as his employer did. This, however, was no mimicry, but an attempt to conceal the psoriasis from which he had always suffered and by which he was acutely embarrassed. His batting, too, was very much his own. His leg glance, which attracted the admiration of Bradman, and late cut were very distinctive and not copied from any other player.
Prolific scoring in grade cricket saw him win a place in the New South Wales side in 1927/28, where he became the youngest player to score two centuries in a first class match achieving that feat against South Australia at the SCG. He was selected for a tour of New Zealand at the end of the season in a side which was a mixture of experienced and young players.
With a century at Invercagill, he did well enough with the bat but was involved in one off field incident which may have had much more serious consequences. On one of the team's free days, he was in a party exploring the slopes of Mount Cook, when Karl Schneider, a brilliant young left hand batsman, suddenly began to haemorrhage badly. Archie was one of those who helped him to a mountain hut. Schneider died six months later, but in after years Archie's family were to wonder if his own fatal illness was not contracted at that moment.
For the moment though he carried all before him. The 1928/29 season saw an England team in Australia win the Ashes 4 -1, largely thanks to the magnificent batting of Walter Hammond. Archie came into the Australian side for the Fourth Test at Adelaide, a match England won by 12 runs with Hammond scoring two centuries. However it was Archie who played the innings that everyone remembered.
After England had been bowled out for 334, Australia, with Archie opening with Bill Woodfull, were reduced to 19/3. Archie, however, then took charge. Batting 5 hours 19 minutes he made 169 against the powerful England attack led by Harold Larwood. MA Noble, the former Australian captain and now a noted critic, described the innings in his The Fight for The Ashes 1928-29.
"He gave no chance, his strokes were magnificent square on both sides of the wicket and included late cuts rarely seen in modern batting."
He was eventually out lbw to slow left armer JC White, though he was yards down the wicket. He had hit 15 fours. He remains the youngest to score a hundred on Ashes debut.
Noble also described the way in which Jackson went to his hundred,
"Larwood was given the new ball, Jackson made a lovely well timed square drive off a half volley outside the off stump. In its execution it was the finest stroke of the match."
English players and critics thought that Jackson would be THE success of the 1930 tour, Bradman, who had made an impressive debut in the series, they thought would not make a run. His technique was unsuited to English conditions.
Jackson's form in the 1929/30 season, which included a brilliant 182 in the pre tour Trial, ensured that he was on the boat for England. Here, however, he was but a pale shadow of himself. In retrospect it is clear that he was already suffering from his final illness. He scored 1,087 runs at 34.28 with one century, 118 v Somerset.
Bradman, the man who was not going to score a run in England, made 2,960 of them including 974 in the Tests. They did have a match winning partnership in the final deciding Test, when they put on a record 243 for the 4th wicket. Both were badly hit about the body by Larwood on a rain affected wicket at one stage during the stand.
Bradman's reaction is thought by some to have sown the seeds of Bodyline. He still scored 232. Jackson stood firm, even joking with Larwood. "Bowl one off the stumps, Harold, and I'll hit you." However as Wisden noted, "Jackson played nothing like as well as those who saw him in Australia knew that he could."
Looking back and knowing what his real state of health was, his 73 at The Oval was an even more remarkable innings than his wonderful hundred at Adelaide.
In the 1930-31 season he lost his place in the Australian side, managing only 124 runs in 5 innings against the West Indies with 70* in the 10 wicket victory in the First Test. He also hit a brilliant 183 for NSW against South Australia, putting on 334 for the second wicket with Bradman (258).He began the following season with a stylish 183 for Balmain, but, just as he was about to take the field against Queensland at Brisbane he began to haemorrhage.
Within a week he was in a sanatorium in the Blue Mountains, pulmonary tuberculosis having been diagnosed. He was an impatient patient and soon removed himself to Brisbane, both to be near his girlfriend Phyllis Thomas and in the mistaken belief that the hot weather would help his condition.
He insisted on playing cricket in Brisbane in the 1932/33 season, also taking an interest in the Bodyline series. He scored three hundreds but collapsed after a match in early February.
On the 16th, having a few days earlier become engaged to Phyllis, he fell into a deep sleep, almost his last words having been to ask the score in the decisive 4th Test going on a few miles away at The Gabba.
He died on the day England regained the Ashes (as they just have as these words are typed). His body was taken by rail to Sydney on the same train that carried the two Test sides to Sydney for the Fifth Test. His funeral was attended by thousands, the pall bearers being the cream of Australian cricket.
How good a player was he? This can never be satisfactorily answered, but like Victor Trumper or Jack Hobbs, and, in more recent times David Gower, those who saw him play remembered not so much the runs he scored but the way in he which he scored them.
The 1930s, was an age of monumental innings by batsmen such as Bradman and Hammond. Had Archie Jackson lived it might also have been an era of elegance.
NOTE The main source for any study of Jackson must be David Frith's seminal biography The Archie Jackson Story. I am also indebted to the following authors: MA Noble, John Arlott, Peter Roebuck, Chris Harte, Jack Pollard, Christopher Hilton and, of course to Wisden.
Copyright: Cover Point
