A sad centenary

 posted by John Winn

Yesterday marked the centenary of the beginning of a test career that lasted only four days. On December 31st 1920 Dr Roy Lindsay Park an Australian cricketer and 'Aussie Rules' player made his test debut. The occasion was the second test in the 1920-21 series between Australia and England, played at the MCG with England already one down in the series after a crushing defeat at Sydney. Australia got off to 'a capital start' (Wisden) with Bardsley and Collins adding 116 for the first wicket before the latter was dismissed by Warwickshire's Harry Howell for 64. Enter Park, playing only because Macartney was suffering from gastritis, to be bowled first ball by Howell who too was playing in his first test. Howell claimed that the momentous delivery was the finest he delivered in his whole career. Added poignancy is given to the story if we accept the truth of the legend that says that Park's wife, Alice, who was combining spectating with knitting dropped a stitch which distracted her attention from the cricket and thus missed the whole of her husband's test career as a batsman. Australia were not required to bat a second time and although 'Parkie' as he was imaginatively known was named as twelfth man for the third test he was never picked again for his country. That he bowled one wicketless over for nine runs in England's first innings probably afforded little comfort. 

On his return to the pavilion Park received much sympathetic applause for he was an immensely popular man both as a sportsman and a doctor. Sadly he did not have a long life for he died in 1947 aged 54 by which time he was a widower for the unfortunate Alice had died fourteen years earlier. They had two children, a son also Roy who followed in his father's footsteps as a doctor and a daughter Alice who married Ian Johnson, a future captain of Australia. Given that Johnson  played against England in 1946 it is possible that Dr Park saw his son-in-law play test cricket. Let's hope so. 

Harry Howell is also an interesting figure and in some ways a sad one for he too died prematurely, aged just 41 and in his five tests for England Wisden remarks that his slips 'failed him wretchedly'. He dropped out of county cricket in 1929 but like Park his sporting skills were not confined to cricket for he played professional football for Wolves, Port Vale, Stoke City and Accrington Stanley. The cause of his premature death, to me at least, remains a mystery.