Douglas Carr

Douglas Carr
	leg-break and googly
Role	Bowler
International information
National side	England;
Only Test (cap 162)	9 August 1909 v Australia
Domestic team information
1909–1914	Kent
Career statistics
	Source: CricInfo, 23 April 2016

Douglas Ward Carr (17 March 1872 – 23 March 1950) was an English

Cricketers of the Year

in 1910.

Early life

Carr was educated at the

football and cricket for the university. He injured his knee playing football, and as a result did not make any first-class cricket appearances for the University

.

Cricket career

After leaving Oxford, he spent some years playing club cricket in the Maidstone area. It was during this period, in 1908, that he learnt to bowl the then fairly new googly. The following May he made his first-class debut for Kent against his old university, and took seven wickets in the match, including 5/65 in the first innings. His next chances came in July, in two Gentlemen v Players games, and again he met with success, taking a total of fifteen wickets in the four innings.

Carr quickly established himself as a member of the Kent side, and by the second week of August had claimed 42 wickets in his first six first-class games. There was now a clamour for his inclusion in the

Old Trafford, he was picked for the final match of the series at The Oval, becoming the first man ever to play Test cricket for England in his first year in the first-class game. Carr took 7/282 in the match, including 5/146 in the first innings,^[2] although his efforts could not force an English victory and the resulting draw meant that the Australians carried off the Ashes. Newspapers and Wisden heavily criticised the England captain Archie MacLaren for over-bowling Carr.^[3]

1909 was also Carr's best in first-class cricket as a whole, as he took 95 wickets including an

Wisden Cricketer of the Year, in 1910 he helped Kent to the 1910 County Championship title, and in 1912 he averaged

just 12.01 in taking 61 first-class wickets.

A poor batsman, Carr never made a half-century, and in his later years his batting declined even further. In his last significant season (1913) he scored only 95 runs in 17 innings. In 1914 he played only one match, in late July against

Salcombe Hill near Sidmouth in Devon

.

References

^ "O.S. Sportsmen". The Suttonian. 34 (5): 54. 1988.
^ "5th Test: England v Australia at The Oval, Aug 9-11, 1909". espncricinfo. Retrieved 13 December 2011.
^ Down, Michael. Archie : a biography of A. C. MacLaren.

External links

Douglas Carr at ESPNcricinfo

[1] "O.S. Sportsmen". The Suttonian. 34 (5): 54. 1988.

[espncricinfo-2] "5th Test: England v Australia at The Oval, Aug 9-11, 1909". espncricinfo. Retrieved 13 December 2011.

[3] Down, Michael. Archie : a biography of A. C. MacLaren.

[2]

[3]