by Pradip Dhole
Richmond Cricket Club, founded 1854, and is one of the oldest cricket clubs in Melbourne. The club had contributed two of the players for the Australian team in the very first Test match of all, against England, at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in 1876-77. The players were Tom Kendall and John Hodges.
The current story begins in the nets of the Club in 1926, when a fairly tall and rangy wicketkeeper from a neighbouring local club known as Richmond Rumblers had come to Richmond CC at Punt Road, Melbourne for a net session in the pursuit of a District cricket career.
While the lad was having a bowl in the Second XI net he drew the attention of the skipper of the First XI, the much experienced Les Keating. To quote the newsletter of the club, “Les noted the extreme speed generated by a lethal right arm and how uncomfortable the batsmen were. Keating remarked that Ernie’s days as a wicketkeeper were over, Richmond had a new fast bowler and as early as 1929 he was opening the bowling for Victoria. Up to his last state game in 1938-39 he represented the state 43 times taking 134 wickets.” The lad went by the name of Ernest Leslie McCormick.
Ernest ‘Ernie’ Leslie McCormick was born May 16, 1906 at North Carlton, Melbourne. The Victoria Cricket Association Premiership League, commonly known as Melbourne Grade Cricket system, is an indispensable cog in the wheel of cricket in Victoria, and has given the state, and indeed, the country, numerous cricket stars.
In the case of McCormick, this step proved to be vital in his development as the fearsome right arm fast bowler of later years. By all accounts, McCormick had been “wreaking havoc in Melbourne Grade cricket” prior to making his First-Class debut. Let us examine this phase of his cricketing career a little further.
Between November 1926 and his First-Class debut in December 1929, we find him playing 18 games in this genre, taking a total of 32 wickets, and improving his skills by the day. In addition, there were 16 more wickets from 4 Second-Class games during this time.
He made his First-Class debut with Victoria against Tasmania at Hobart in December 1929, under the leadership of Arthur Liddicut, scoring 3 and 4 and picking up a lone wicket for 11 runs. According to Wisden, “on the second day he was involved in a controversial incident when the ball slipped from his hand as he was about to bowl. Not only did the umpire signal a wide, but the batsmen took a run without the ball being hit, and what should have been a dead ball seems to have found its way into the scorebooks as two wides.”
In all, he played 43 matches for Victoria, scoring 407 runs with a solitary fifty at an average of 9.92. He held 22 catches. More importantly, he took 134 wickets with a best innings bowling analysis of 9 for 40 and an average of 28.59. He had 4 hauls of 5 wickets in an innings and 1 haul of 10 wickets in the match.
He played 12 Tests for Australia, taking 36 wickets. His best innings bowling analysis was 4 for 101.
McCormick had a classical fast bowler’s high-arm action and “released the ball at tremendous speed causing former Richmond player Doug Ring, a team mate of Ernie to voice the opinion that he was a faster bowler than the legendary Australian duo (of) Ray Lindwall and Keith Miller.”
Such was the considered stamp of approval from a former Test colleague, the comparison with the two great legends of the 1948 “Invincibles” adding flavour and spice to the favourable impression that McCormick had created with his bowling efforts.
Ernie was selected for the 1935-36 tour of South Africa under the leadership of Victor Richardson. The tour was dominated by the leg-spinning duo of Clarrie Grimmett and Bill O’Reilly. McCormick made his debut in the first Test at Durban, opening bowling with Stan McCabe in each innings and picking up only 1 wicket in an Australian victory by 9 wickets.
In all, McCormick took 15 wickets in 5 Tests at 27.86. His tally for the whole tour was 49 wickets from 13 First-Class games with an average of 18.06. He was gradually improving on his cricket profile.
Despite his terrible record of no-ball, Ernie McCormick spearheaded the Australian attack in the late 1930s © Getty Images
When England visited toured Australia in 1936-37, McCormick began the series in sensational manner, dismissing Stan Worthington with the first ball of the series. Shortly afterwards, he dismissed Arthur Fagg and Wally Hammond off successive deliveries, inflicting the first ever duck in an Ashes Test on Hammond, and leaving England on 20 for 3. He had to withdraw from the attack 3 overs later with an acute attack of lumbago that was to see him miss the third Test also. He went on to take 11 wickets in all in his 4 Tests of the series.
In his book Bradman’s Band, Ashley Mallett speaks of a match between Victoria and South Australia at Adelaide where McCormick had really let fly on the placid track, picking up 9 for 40, his best figures in First-Class cricket, in 11 furious overs. That included the wicket of Don Bradman, caught by Lindsay Hassett for 8. Things were shaping up quite satisfactorily for our Ernie with the Ashes tour of 1938 looming ahead.
McCormick was the lone genuine speed merchant for the Ashes tour of England in 1938, the team relying heavily on the spinning capabilities of O’Reilly, ‘Chuck’ Fleetwood-Smith and Frank Ward. By now, McCormick had built up a “fearsome reputation for high pace, which Bradman himself gently encouraged before the team arrived, but the tour was not over before some expressed the view that he was the most overrated bowler to visit England,” to quote Wisden.
McCormick had a very chastening experience in the very first game of the tour, the traditional tour-opener against Worcestershire, played at New Road 1938. The umpires for the match were Herbert Baldwin and Jack Smart, and they were to have an important impact on the proceedings.
Charles Lyttelton won the toss and sent the visitors in. Bradman began the tour with his customary double-century (258 in 290 minutes with 33 fours), and the Australians finished with 541.
The home first innings was launched by Lyttelton (50) and Charles Bull (37), the pair putting on a first-wicket stand of 103. McCormick opened the attack for the visitors with McCabe, and was called 19 times for over-stepping the mark in his first 3 overs by Baldwin. He was called 35 times in all in the match — not a very auspicious beginning for a man making his first tour of England, and playing his first game.
There was a story doing the rounds at the time, apocryphal perhaps, that McCormick had been heard to remark that he would be fine after lunch, as the umpires would be pretty hoarse by then.
There were other stories as well. One of them involved his sister calling him long-distance after the no-ball debacle with a curt message: “Come back, you’re embarrassing us.”
As David Fraser remarked in his book Cricket and the Law: The Man in White is Always Right: “He not only accepted their authority and decision without demur but he offered his apologies to the umpires. To act otherwise, to question or doubt the umpires would simply not be cricket.”
To his credit, McCormick corrected his technique almost immediately and bowled quite effectively in the Tests, particularly in the second Test at Lord’s, where he had figures of 4 for 101 (his best bowling figures in Test cricket) and 3 for 72. He took 10 wickets in 3 Tests on the 1938 England tour. Those were to be his last 3 Tests.
Back home, McCormick played his last First-Class game with Victoria against Western Australia at Perth in March 1939, taking 4 for 48 and 1 for 43.
Throughout his career, his left-handed batting efforts had always elicited more mirth than substance, but he did have one day in the sun, against Queensland, at Melbourne, in December 1934.
Victoria were reduced to 199 for 8 when skipper, Hans Ebeling departed, having scored only 1. The #10 batsman, McCormick then joined wicketkeeper Ben Barnett (36), and the pair added 77 invaluable runs for the ninth wicket before Barnett fell. In walked #11 Fleetwood-Smith.
Wisden described the finale of the innings in a most lucid manner, as follows: “he and Fleetwood-Smith made 98 for the last wicket against Queensland. They swiped at everything, and no-one could be absolutely sure how many times they were dropped before the pantomime was over. According to McCormick, who was undefeated on 77 (his highest score), it was thirteen.”
Having played his last game for Richmond CC, the team that had really launched him into big-time cricket, he served on the Committee for a period of 3 years.
McCormick had been a jeweller by trade in his private life. After the sensational finish of the Brisbane Test of the 1960-61 series against the visiting West Indies team had ended in an unprecedented tie, McCormick had been approached by the Australian Cricket Control Board and by Bradman personally, to craft a permanent and rolling trophy for all Test series between West Indies and Australia to come, to be awarded to the winner of the series.
McCormick was able to complete the job well in time, incorporating one of the balls used in the tied Test in the design of the trophy, named the Frank Worrell Trophy. Australia having won 2-1 in a series played with outstanding skill and goodwill on both sides, it was the pleasant duty of Frank (later, and very deservedly, Sir Frank) Worrell, to hand over the trophy named after himself to his rival skipper, Richie Benaud, at Melbourne, in front of thousands of applauding cricket aficionados.
McCormick passed away on June 28, 1991 at Tweed Heads, New South Wales, aged 85, leaving behind wonderful memories of a man recognised as being among the most genuine of characters to play cricket in Australia. His good humour rubbed off on all who came in contact with him and he created a happy atmosphere in which to play cricket. What greater legacy can a man leave behind?