Lives in Cricket No 5 - Rockley Wilson

issue of 6 March, 1921, said that the most serious mistake committed on the tour was the omission of Fender and Wilson in all five Tests, adding magisterially that A.C.MacLaren and P.F.Warner would surely have included both in all five matches and thereby “materially improved the team’s chances of victory”: a rather fanciful speculation, it has to be said, given the strength of the opposition. But even before the series began, an Australian newspaper article was reflecting that Wilson’s style of slow, accurate bowling could be very successful against young Australian batsmen who would be tempted “to have a go at him.” Rockley Wilson himself did not have a good opinion of Douglas. In a letter to his sister Phyllis after only two of the Test matches, he said that the captain was not a success because of “his disregard on the field of advice from the real experts” and his “peculiar gift for ruffling the feathers of the professionals – coming the colonel over them, as I have overheard it described.” But Rockley reserved his strongest criticism for the disruption caused, he said, by the presence since the beginning of the tour of Mrs Douglas and her daughter-in-law. “It is very hard to like the man,” he concluded. Rockley kept his strong feelings about his captain to himself and it seems that his views were not shared by all his team-mates. Cecil Parkin, for example, went out of his way in his various books to say how much he admired Johnny Douglas and to praise his captaincy. But it is likely that Rockley was piqued by a growing realisation that he was likely to play only a minor role on the tour, despite being the official vice-captain. It is also likely that Wilson’s views on the effect of the presence of accompanying females were shared since, after the tour, MCC ruled that wives would not be allowed to accompany their player-husbands on future tours. While Fender played in the last three Tests, Rockley Wilson’s only appearance was in the Fifth and final Test at Sydney, when he may have got his chance as much because the two fast bowlers, Hitch and Howell, were unfit as for his own bowling abilities. At 42, he was the oldest cricketer to get his first cap for England except for James Southerton, who was 49 years when he played in the very first Test match in 1877. 80 Australia won the match by eight wickets, but Wilson emerged with some credit. He bowled excellently to take two for 28 in the first innings from 14.3 six-ball Australia and After 80 80 Rockley Wilson might well have observed that, had there been earlier Test matches, Southerton would no doubt have been younger when he was first capped!