He once scored 325 in a first-class match against the New Zealanders. And when Victoria amassed that 1107 at MCG in 1926-27, he got a ‘mere 100’.
Stork Hendry was batting on 96 in the 1928-29 Sydney Test, when the players stopped for a drink.
Apparently at this juncture a certain Douglas Jardine tried to spike his water with whisky. Patsy Hendren, that cheery Londoner with the impish grin, warned Stork about it. And what did our man do? He nodded, thanked Patsy and drank it in one gulp. Soon he had pushed Hammond down the ground and was galloping away for his only hundred in Test cricket.
When the Englishmen returned, this time under the captaincy of Jardine, in 1932-33, Hendry was writing for the Melbourne-based newspaper Truth.
Jardine’s masterplan was to unleash Bodyline when he was away. He instructed vice-captain Bob Wyatt and his henchmen Larwood and Voce on the night before a game against an Australian XI, and legged it to Bogong Valley 200 miles away, enjoying a fishing trip with three friends. Under Wyatt’s captaincy, Larwood and Voce let the balls fly to a leg-side field. Bradman was leg before for 36.
There were many questions asked about the English tactics, and Hendry for one refused to believe that Jardine had no hand in this. He wrote in his column: “Douglas Jardine, captain of all the bally old English cricketahs, went trout fishing while Larwood was trying to decapitate Don Bradman and Bill Woodfull… Now, just why did Mr Jardine go off hunting for trout? Ah ha, ah ha!” …
Hendry’s suggestion was that ‘Jardine wanted to avoid the inevitable outcry when his fast men let loose this barrage.’
He and Jardine never really saw eye to eye.
But what exactly had started their feud?
It happened during a tour match in the 1928-29 series, prior to the Tests. Jardine was being barracked by the Melbourne crowd and Stork was actually trying to cheer him up. But the neurotic anti-Australian venom was already rising in Jardine.
In spite of all Stork’s good intentions, the Bombay-born Scotsman told him, “All Orstralians are an uneducated and unruly mob.”
Stork looked at him and replied, “If that’s what you think, then you can go to buggery!”
They don’t sledge like that anymore.
Stork Hendry was born on 24 May 1895.