Arthur Morris

A left-handed opening batsman for the ‘The Invincibles’, Arthur Morris played Test cricket for Australia between 1946 and 1955. He made his first-class debut in 1940, but the World War II, put paid to an early international start to Morris’ Test career.

Don Bradman considered him to be one of the finest left-handed openers around, and this was vindicated by his consistent run of centuries against oppositions during the same period. Soon after the Don’s retirement, he was appointed vice captain of the Australian team under Lindsay Hassett, and even went on to captain the side in a match when Hassett withdrew due to injury. However, his batting started to fall away towards the end of his career, as a once average of 80 ended at less than 47 per innings. In the end, Morris scored more than 3500 runs, but what stood out was his conversion rate, he scored twelve fifties and twelve hundreds, 8 of them coming against England.

He retired from Test cricket in 1955, when his wife was diagnosed to be terminally ill. He did not play another match after that, though as the grief subsided, he worked for a couple of companies, and was appointed to the Sydney Cricket Ground trust. He became the fourteenth player to be inducted in the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame, and was also picked up in the Australian Cricket Board’s Team of the Century.