by Arunabha Sengupta
He noticed Frank Iredale screwed around as he turned balls off his toes. He told bowler Bob McLeod so between overs. Along came a leg-side yorker, and Iredale missed it. The stumping was so fast that the batsman kept believing Jack Blackham had collected the ball with his left hand and had flicked off the bails with his right. However, the square leg umpire saw it happen and knew it was incredible but clean.
Most of his teeth were knocked out or broken off. The rumour persisted that for life he had a cavity in his chest where a fast ball had staved his ribs. On rarest of rare occasions, for example a match against Surrey when Spofforth’s bowling flew all around, he went back a few yards. Else he was always up at the stumps, his spade like beard almost touching the bails, keeping to men fast and slow, with flimsily protected fingers and shin.
In the early days, keeping for South against East Melbourne, he had Lou Woolf walking up to him from behind. “I’m getting nothing to do, Jack, what say I field at fine leg?” Soon, the long stop was dispensed with.
When WG was asked to name the best wicketkeeper he had seen, his answer was: “Don’t be silly, there has been only one — Jack Blackham.” This general opinion did not change even when cricket evolved beyond the Great War into the standardised era, long after Sammy Carter introduced the keeper’s crouch. Blackham, like the others of his era, bent from the waist.
He cut too many corners to be considered a very good batsman, but was the first Australian to score 50 in both innings. Once, when Victoria struggled against New South Wales, Blackham the captain berated a batsman—Percy McDonnell no less—for chasing off-balls. Then, one hand swinging the bat angrily, the other in his pocket, he strode in and hit 109. When he returned to the pavilion, the chided batsman pointed out that Blackham himself was chasing off-balls all through the innings. Blackham retorted, “From now on I hope you’ll know how to do it.”
He was too highly strung to be a good captain, though he won The Ashes against Grace in 1891-92. His final series as skipper of Australia saw him lose a stone from worries.
Blackham had another odd distinction. The first Australian captain who remained a lifelong bachelor. After his playing days, his friends subscribed to send him to watch Test matches until his death during the Bodyline series. Two days later, the Australians wore black armbands as they faced England at Melbourne.
Jack Blackham was born on 11 May 1854.
Illustration Maha