Stan McCabe

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Stan McCabe Australia (AUS)
Batting style	Right-hand bat
Bowling type	Right-arm medium (RM)
	Tests	First-class
Matches	39	182
Runs scored	2748	11951
Batting average	48.21	49.38
100s/50s	6/13	29/68
Top score	232	240
Balls bowled	3746	13440
Wickets	36	159
Bowling average	42.86	33.72
5 wickets in innings	0	1
10 wickets in match	0	0
Best bowling	4/13	5/36
Catches/stumpings	41/0	138/0
Test debut: 13 June 1930 Last Test: 24 August 1938 Source: [1]

Stanley Joseph McCabe (16 July 1910, Grenfell, New South Wales, Australia - 25 August 1968, Mosman, New South Wales) was an Australian cricketer. McCabe played 39 Test matches for Australia from 1930 to 1938, and led a noted career as a short, stocky attacking right-handed batsman, described by Wisden as "one of Australia's greatest and most enterprising batsmen". He was never dropped from the Australian Test team in his career^[1] and was known for his footwork, mastery of fast bowling and the hook shot against the Bodyline strategy. He also regularly bowled medium-pace as a part-timer, using an off cutter. He was one of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1935.^[2]

[edit] Early years

The son of a local barber, McCabe was one of four brothers, who grew up playing local cricket in his hometown. At the age of 14, McCabe won a scholarship to St. Joseph's College, Hunters Hill in Sydney due to his sporting ability, playing in the Senior First XI at 14 as an all-rounder. Aside from playing cricket, he was also full-back in the school's championship winning Rugby union team in 1926.^[3] He returned to Grenfell at the end of the year, and was noticed by state and later Australian selector E. A. Dwyer, who led a team to play in the country town. Dwyer convinced McCabe's parents to allow their son to move to Sydney to further his cricket career. After appearing with the New South Wales Colts teams, he was selected to represent New South Wales in his first-class debut against Queensland in the 1928-29 Sheffield Shield season. He made 60 and 34, but was later omitted when the Test players returned from international duty. He settled in Sydney permanently in 1929.^[1]

[edit] International debut

He was selected to tour England in 1930 under Bill Woodfull's Australian cricket team and made his debut in the First Test at Trent Bridge, Nottingham. He took match figures of 2/65 and in his first Test innings as a batsman, he hit the first ball he received for a boundary but was dismissed off the next ball,^[3] before scoring 49 in the second innings.^[4] He then collected 4/41 in the Fourth Test at Old Trafford, and then scored his first half-century, 54 at The Oval in the Fifth. In all, he scored 210 runs at 35 and 8 wickets at 27.62,^[1] and aggregated more than 1000 for the whole tour.^[2] Upon his return to Australia, he played all five Tests against the West Indies in 1930/31. He scored 90 in the First at Adelaide Oval, but struggled thereafter, totalling 196 runs at 32.66. The following year, he scored centuries in all three Sheffield Shield innings, scoring 229* Queensland at Brisbane and 106 and 103* against Victoria in Sydney, yielding a season average of 438. He was unable to translate the success into the Test arena, scoring 201 at 33.50 but bowled well with nine wickets at 22.77 in five Tests against South Africa, the highlight being an all-round performance of 79 and 4/13 at the Sydney Cricket Ground.^[2][5][6]

[edit] Bodyline

Stan McCabe's career performance graph.

McCabe made his breakthrough in the following Australian season in 1932-33, in the First Test in Sydney, with England led by Douglas Jardine employing the Bodyline bowling theory. This involved constant intimidatory short-pitched leg-side bowling with a leg-cordon to catch balls fended off by the batsman, in an attempt to curtail Donald Bradman, universally regarded as the best batsman ever, from scoring. Coming in at 3/82 on the first day, with Bill Woodfull, Bill Ponsford and Jack Fingleton already dismissed, and Bradman ill, McCabe and Vic Richardson added 129 after Alan Kippax had fallen at 4/87, before reaching stumps at 127 not out with the total 6/290. McCabe's innings was marked by dangerous cutting and compulsive hooking of short-pitched deliveries in front of his face, unfazed by the repeated body blows which hit his team-mates. Having warned his parents, who were watching him in Test cricket for the only time, not to jump the fence should he be hit, McCabe's attack forced Jardine to abandon his Bodyline approach.^[3] He scored 60 of the 70 runs the next day to finish 187* from 233 balls whilst batting with the tail, batting a little over four hours.^[1] He was praised by Harold Larwood, the English paceman who spearheaded the Bodyline approach with 10/128 after the match ended in a decisive 10-wicket victory for England.^[3] He totalled 385 runs at 43 for the series and was the only Australian batsman other than Bradman to score a century, as the English decisively won the series 4-1.^[2]

Returning to England again in 1934, he scored eight centuries on the tour, more than any of his team-mates - including one innings of 240, the highest of his career, against Surrey at The Oval and 137 in the Third Test at Old Trafford. He compiled three half-centuries to aggregate 483 runs at 60.37 and took four wickets. At the time, Wisden said of him: “He blossomed forth as an almost completely equipped batsman of the forcing type and was probably the best exponent -- Bradman himself scarcely excluded -- of the art of hitting the ball tremendously hard and safely.”^[2]

[edit] 1935-36 South African tour

Don Bradman (left) and Stan McCabe (right) resume an innings during an Australian XI versus Western Australia match at the WACA Ground on 26 April 1938.

The following Australian season he became captain of New South Wales and on the tour of South Africa in 1935-36 he enjoyed more success, heading the Test batting figures with 420 runs, averaging 84.^[6] He hit 149 in the first Test at Durban, sharing a second-wicket partnership of 161 with Bill Brown in gale-force conditions which forced the umpires to glue the bails to the wickets using chewing gum,^[3] to set up a nine-wicket victory.^[7] At the following Test in Johannesburg, Australia were set a record 399 in the second innings to achieve victory on a turning wicket, and McCabe joined Fingleton at 1/17 to take the score to 1/85 by the end of the third day. The following morning in poor visibility, McCabe scored a century in the morning session, before Fingleton was dismissed at 2/194. McCabe pushed the score to 2/274, with only 125 needed with half the day remaining, Australia were on course to meet the target, having already scored 189 in the first half. However, Herbie Wade, the South African captain made an unprecedented appeal against the light due fear “for the fieldsmen's safety” in the face of McCabe's aggressive batting.^[1][8][3] He finished on 189*, an innings described by Fingleton as “bordering on miraculous”.^[2] The following year, having been appointed Bradman's vice-captain, he had a successful Ashes series in 1936-37 in Australia, aggregating 491 runs in five Tests at 54.55, scoring 112 in the Fifth Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, and five half-centuries in a consist display.^[6]

[edit] International farewell

The 1938 Ashes Tour of England was McCabe's last for Australia. McCabe's most highly-rated innings came in the First Test at Trent Bridge. England compiled 8/658 before declaring late on the second day. McCabe arrived at the crease with the dismissal of Bradman at 2/111, and was 19 at the close of play with the total 3/138. The next morning he added 213 of the 273 runs scored, and was the last man out after a final wicket partnership with Leslie Fleetwood-Smith of 77, in which he scored 72. He finished with 232 in 235 minutes with 34 boundaries and one six, an innings in which Bradman summoned his players not to miss a ball, as “they would never see anything like it again.”^[1] Upon his return to the pavilion Bradman greeted him with the words: “If I could play an innings like that, I'd be a proud man, Stan.”^[2] It was regarded by English captains Arthur Gilligan and Bob Wyatt to be the best innings that they had ever witnessed.^[3] McCabe retired from Test matches at the end of the tour at just 28 years of age, due to chronic foot injuries. Curiously, none of his three most celebrated innings at Trent Bridge, Johannesburg nor Sydney resulted in an Australian victory.^[1][9]

He continued to captain New South Wales for a further three seasons before retiring in 1941, aged just 31, with 24 wins and four losses in 38 matches as captain. He was briefly a member of the Australian Defence Forces during the Second World War, but his feet problems resulted in an early discharge.^[1] He served on the Trust of the Sydney Cricket Ground and operated a sports store in George Street, Sydney. Plagued by ill-health in his middle age, he died after falling from a cliff at his home in Mosman, New South Wales.^[1] He was inducted into the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame in 2002.^[2]

[edit] References