 Darling in about 1905 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Personal information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Full name | Joseph Darling | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | (1870-11-21)21 November 1870 Glen Osmond, South Australia | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Died | 2 January 1946(1946-01-02) (aged 75) Hobart, Tasmania | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Nickname | Paddy[1] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Height | 1.72 m (5 ft 8 in) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Batting | Left-handed | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Role | Batsman | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| International information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| National side | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Test debut (cap 64) | 14 December 1894 v England | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Last Test | 14 August 1905 v England | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Domestic team information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Years | Team | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1893/94–1907/08 | South Australia | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Career statistics | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Source:CricketArchive,10 February 2008 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Joseph DarlingCBE (21 November 1870 – 2 January 1946) was an Australiancricketer who played 34Test matches as a specialistbatsman between 1894 and 1905. Ascaptain, he led Australia in a total of 21 Tests, winning seven and losing four. In Test cricket, he scored 1,657 runs at anaverage of 28.56 perinnings, including threecenturies. Darling toured England four times with the Australian team—in 1896, 1899, 1902 and 1905; the last three tours as captain. He was captain of theAustralian cricket team in England in 1902, widely recognised as one of the best teams in Australian cricket history.
He was a stocky, compact man and a strongdriver of the ball, playing most of his cricket as anopening batsman. He was a patient batsman and was known for his solid defence, but he was able to score quickly when required. In Sydney in 1897–98, he scored 160 in 165 minutes, including 30boundaries to assist his team in defeating theEnglish. He was the first man to score 500 runs in a Test series and also the first to score threecenturies in a series. His captaincy was disciplinarian in nature but his teammates respected his broad cricket knowledge. Even tempered with a strong personality, he was a stickler for fair play on the field. His teammates gave him thenickname "Paddy" due to a supposed resemblance to the Australian boxer,Frank "Paddy" Slavin.
His cricket career was interrupted several times due to his obligations as a farmer, first growing wheat in South Australia, and later as a wool-grower inTasmania. He was a member of several bodies dedicated to agriculture in Tasmania, including the responsible authority for theRoyal Hobart Show. He was a pioneer in activities such asrabbit eradication and pasture improvement. He entered politics in 1921, standing as an independent in theTasmanian Legislative Council, where he was a forceful speaker. He retained his seat in the Tasmanian Parliament until his death following agall bladder operation in 1946.
Darling was born on 21 November 1870 inGlen Osmond, South Australia, the sixth son ofJohn Darling, agrain merchant and his wife Isabella, née Ferguson. He was educated atPrince Alfred College, where he took an interest in cricket. At the age of 15, he scored a record 252 runs in the "inter-collegiate" match, the annual fixture against fierce rivalSt Peter's College.[2] His future Test teammate,Clem Hill, would later beat this record, scoring 360.[3] Not long after, he was included in a combinedSouth Australian/Victoria XV that played the Australian XI in 1886. He made only 16 runs, but the manner in which he made them saw senior players hail him as a future champion.[4]
His father, disapproving of Darling's fondness for sport, sent him away from his cricket andAustralian rules football teams to spend twelve months atRoseworthy Agricultural School. Later, Darling worked in a bank for a time before his father appointed him manager of a wheat farm.[4] Working on the farm added size and strength to an already stocky and athletic frame.[1] He was selected for the South Australian team at age 19, but his father would not allow him time off the farm to play.[1]
After two years in the bush, Darling returned toAdelaide and cricket. He opened a sports store onRundle Street, Adelaide and was soon selected to represent South Australia in inter-colonial cricket.[4] He made hisfirst-class cricket debut againstNew South Wales at theAdelaide Oval; scoring five and 32 as South Australia won the match by 237 runs.[5] The next season, against the touringEngland team captained byAndrew Stoddart, Darling made 115, his maiden first-classcentury.[6]
The First Test of 1894–95 againstEngland, at theSydney Cricket Ground, saw Darling make his Test debut. In aninnings where Australia make 586 runs, including centuries forGeorge Giffen andSyd Gregory, Darling was dismissed for agolden duck,bowled first ball byTom Richardson.[7] He made 53 runs in the second innings of his maiden Test.[8] He played in all five Tests in the series, scoring 258 runs at anaverage of 28.66 per innings.[9] He was included in the Australian team to tour England in 1896, where he topped the scoring aggregates for the tour with 1555 runs at an average of 29.90, including three centuries.[10]Wisden Cricketers' Almanack stated that Darling "proved himself perhaps the best of present-day left-handed batsmen" during the tour.[11] England won the series two Tests to one.[11]
Andrew Stoddart brought another team to Australia to contestThe Ashes in 1897–98. Australia won the series comfortably, four Tests to one.[12] Darling started the season poorly, scoring a duck and one against the tourists for South Australia in a match in which teammateClem Hill scored a double century.[13] Darling went on, however, to dominate the series with the bat. His maiden Test century, 101 in the First Test at theSydney Cricket Ground after Australia was made tofollow-on, was the first made by a left-hander in Tests.[1] It was not enough to prevent England winning by nine wickets.[14]
In the Third Test in his home town of Adelaide, Darling scored 178 runs and Australia won the match by an innings and 13 runs.[15] He reached his century by hittingJohnny Briggs over the eastern gate and into the nearby park. This is the only time in Ashes Tests where a player has reached 100 with a hit out of the ground.[1] During this innings, he also became the first player to hit asix in a Test in Australia (prior to 1910, a six was awarded only if the ball was hit out of the ground). He later also hit the first six in a Test in England.[16] Returning to Sydney for the Fifth and final Test, Darling scored 160 runs from 253 scored in total. He batted for 165 minutes, hitting 30 boundaries as Australia successfully chased 273 in the fourth innings. His first 100 came in 91 minutes; at the time, the fastest Test century scored.[4] By the end of the season, Darling became the first player to score 500 runs in a series and the first player to score three centuries in a series.[1]
Darling was chosen by his teammates as captain for the1899 Australian team touring England.[1] The team was one of the strongest seen in England to that time, with the cricket reference bookWisden stating, "By common consent the [1899 Australians] formed the strongest combination that had come from the Colonies since the great side captained by Mr.W. L. Murdoch in 1882." and that "Darling proved himself one of the very best captains that ever took a team into the field."[17] The Australians lost only three of the 35 matches they played on the tour, winning 16 and another 16 finishing in draws.[18] The only Test to reach a decisive result was the Second Test atLord's, where Australia won by ten wickets due in part to centuries by Hill andVictor Trumper and aten wicket haul byfast bowlerErnie Jones.[19] Aside fromHill, Darling was seen byWisden as the best batsman among the Australians.Wisden claimed, "Up to a certain point the responsibilities of captaincy seemed to tell against Darling, but during the last weeks of the tour he played marvellous cricket."[17] Over the tour, he scored 1941 runs at an average of 41.29, topping both the averages and the aggregate for his team,[20] and was named as one of theWisden Cricketers of the Year.[21]
Darling's deeds as a cricketer had reconciled his father to his sporting endeavours, but not to his sports store operation. In 1900, his father purchased "Stonehenge", asheep station covering 10,000 acres (4,000 ha) in centralTasmania and ordered Darling to run the property on pain of exclusion from hiswill. Darling complied with his father's wishes and moved his family to the remote station, 34 kilometres (21 mi) along a dirt track from the nearest town, tinyOatlands.[1] Darling stood out of first-class cricket for nearly two years.[22]
It was not until December 1901 that Darling was convinced to return by theMelbourne Cricket Club to captain the Australians against the touring English for the first three Tests only. The English, captained byArchie MacLaren, won the First Test in Sydney convincingly by an innings and 124 runs.[23] The Second Test in Melbourne was played on a rain-affected pitch. MacLaren won thetoss and sent Australia in to bat on the "sticky wicket". Within three hours, both teams had been dismissed; Australia holding a lead on the first innings of 51 runs.[1] Realising the danger the pitch held to his leading batsmen, Darling re-ordered the batting line-up and opened the batting himself alongsideHugh Trumble. The pair held out the English for 90 minutes; Darling considered his 32 runs one of his best innings. Nevertheless, Barnes managed to grab five wickets in the final half-hour to leave the Australians 5/48[24] whenstumps was called.[25] Twenty five wickets fell in the day's play. Importantly, Australia had a 99-run lead and batsmen of the calibre of Hill, Trumper,Reggie Duff andWarwick Armstrong still to bat. The next day, on a perfect pitch, the Australian batsmen established a match-winning lead, eventually winning the Test by 229 runs.[1][25] In the Third Test in Adelaide, Australia became the first team to score over 300 runs to win the fourth innings of a Test match.[1] Darling, along with Hill and Trumble, led the record making run chase; Darling scored 62 runs.[26] Hugh Trumble captained the final two Tests as Darling returned to his farm. Australia won both Tests and the series to retainThe Ashes.[27]
Darling agreed to once again lead theAustralian cricket team in England in 1902. In what was a very cold and wet summer, the Australian team won a close fought series against the strong English team two Tests to one. Given the strength of the opposition, this Australian team is often referred to as one of the best Australian teams ever assembled.[1] The team included players of the calibre of Trumper, Hill, Armstrong, Trumble andMonty Noble; all of whom would be later included in the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame. The team lost only two matches during the tour, withWisden saying, "No travelling team ever strove harder for victory or more completely subordinated all personal considerations to the prime object of winning matches. They formed a splendid all-round combination".[28]
The First Test atEdgbaston finished in a draw. Rain saved the Australians after they were dismissed for only 36 in their first innings;Wilfred Rhodes took seven wickets for only 17 runs.[29] Rain again ruined the Second Test at Lord's when the final two days were washed out.[30] The Third Test, the only Test match played atBramall Lane, saw Australia win by 143 runs due in part to a century by Hill and Noble taking 5/51. Darling was dismissed twice by Barnes without scoring, the first Test captain to make a "pair". Australia won the Fourth Test atOld Trafford by three runs; Trumble took ten wickets for the match.[31] The last batsman,Fred Tate, came in with England needing eight runs to secure victory. Darling brought the field in and Trumble prevented Rhodes scoring from the last three balls of hisover. This left Tate to faceJack Saunders, who dismissed him with the fourth ball of his over to win the match for Australia.[1] England won the Fifth and final Test atthe Oval by one wicket.[32] Chasing 263, England were 5/48 whenGilbert Jessop scored a century in 75 minutes to help England to victory.[33]
The star for the Australians was Trumper who scored 2,570 runs, easily beating Darling's own record for a colonial batsman in an English season set in 1899.[28] So important was Trumper to the Australian team that Darling, who had previously checked that all the Australians were on board the carriage to the ground, was later simply to ask "Is Vic aboard?" before giving the driver the go-ahead.[1] Darling himself had a mixed tour with the bat.
Darling started the tour in a way that promised great things, but he did not keep up his form and fell a good deal below his standard of 1896 and 1899. His tremendous hitting power, however, was several times of the utmost value, and very likely in a season of hard wickets he would have had as good a record as ever.
— Wisden Cricketers' Almanack[28]
On the return trip to Australia, the touring team stopped to play three Tests againstSouth Africa, the first between the two nations. Australia won the series two Tests to nil, but Darling's own form was poor. In successive innings, Darling made 0, 14, 6, 4 and 1. After the tour, he returned to Stonehenge and took a two-year break from first-class cricket. In his absence, Monty Noble captained the Australian team against the touring English in 1903–04.[27]
Before the Australian team to tour England in 1905 was selected, Darling returned to first-class cricket for South Australia. He won selection in the touring squad and was named as captain. A weaker Australian bowling attack saw Darling resort to defensive measures throughout the tour. These measures included directing Armstrong to bowl hisleg breaks down the leg side, where Darling had placed up to seven fielders. These measures, unpopular with the English public, saw 19 matches on the tour finish in draws, three more than the 16 matches won by Australia.[1]Wisden said, "Leaving aside Duff's long score at the Oval, Darling was the finest batsman on the side in the Test games, playing superb cricket under very trying conditions."[34] AtOld Trafford in the Fourth Test, he made 73 out of 105 in less than ninety minutes. His innings included thirteenboundaries, all but one of them beingdrives. Despite his efforts, England still won the Test by an innings and 80 runs.[35]
After losing six tosses against his English opposite numberStanley Jackson during the summer, Darling decided on a different approach before theScarborough Festival match late in the tour. At the toss, he approached Jackson stripped to the waist and suggested, in fun, a wrestle for choice of innings.[1]
The 1905 tour was Darling's last Test cricket foray, as he claimed that continuing to tour was unfair to his wife.[4] He retired from first-class cricket during the 1907–08 season.[27] In his first-class career, Darling made 10635 runs, including 19 centuries at an average of 34.52.[36] In club cricket in Adelaide, Joe scored heavily. He averaged 144 forEast Torrens Cricket Club in 1899–1900, 98.66 forAdelaide Cricket Club in 1896–97 and 86.20 forSturt Cricket Club in 1904–05.[4] He continued to make runs in Tasmanian club cricket right through middle age. In 1921, he made 100 runs in an hour, including 29 in one eight-ball over playing forClaremont Cricket Club. At age 52, he made 133 not out during a successful run chase where his team, Break-o'-Day, made 6/219 in 90 minutes.[4]
He was contemptuous of the newly formedAustralian Board of Control for International Cricket Matches (now known as Cricket Australia), who he saw as attempting to remove control of international cricket tours from the players. He would often refer to cricket administrators as "Dead Heads".[37] He later represented theTasmanian Cricket Association as a delegate to the Board of Control.[37]
Following his retirement from big cricket, Darling returned to his Tasmanian sheep station, where he was involved in a range of agricultural activities. He pioneered measures to eradicaterabbits, an introduced pest then in plague proportions throughout Australia.[4] He was an active member of organisations such as the Tasmanian Stock Holders and Orchardists' Association and theRoyal Agricultural Society of Tasmania, the organising body of theRoyal Hobart Show. Darling imported South Australianmerino rams to improve his flock, and his wool topped the Hobart sales on several occasions. He also introducedsubterranean clover to Tasmania.[4]
In 1919, Darling moved from Stonehenge to Claremont House, around which theHobart suburb ofClaremont later formed.[4] He was elected to theCambridge electorate in theTasmanian Legislative Council in 1921 as an independent. He retained his position in the Parliament until his death in 1946.[38] In Parliament, one of his colleagues wasCharles Eady, his teammate from the 1896 tour of England.[4] Darling was recognised by his colleagues as a forceful, no-nonsense speaker. In the 1930s, he won an exemption fromland tax for small farmers, and toward the end of his parliamentary career, aRoyal Commission was appointed to investigate charges Darling had made regarding maladministration. The findings of the commission, released after his death, saw a governmentMinister and two others found guilty of accepting bribes.[4] Darling was made aCommander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the1938 New Year Honours in recognition of his work as a member of the Legislative Assembly.[39]
Darling married Alice Minna Blanche Francis, a wheat farmer's daughter fromMundoora, South Australia in 1893.[1][2] Together they raised 15 children: ten sons and five daughters.[2] After surgery for a rupturedgall bladder, Darling died in Hobart on 2 January 1946. He was buried atCornelian Bay Cemetery after aCongregationalist ceremony and was survived by his wife and twelve of his children.[2]
Darling had a stocky, compact build, standing 5 feet 8 inches (1.73 metres) and weighing 12 stone 12 pounds (82 kg). His teammates thought his dark hair, blue eyes and moustache were similar to the boxer,Frank "Paddy" Slavin, and he answered to the nickname "Paddy" during his time in cricket.[1] His time working on his father's farm had developed his strength. During his first game for South Australia, he was challenged to a naked wrestle by the fast bowler and ex-minerErnie Jones, an informal initiation into the team. To his teammates' surprise, Darling managed to defeat the much larger Jones.[27]
The left-handed Darling was a strongdriver of the ball who showed the batsman the full face of the bat. When necessary, he was a dour defender of his wicket. His fellow players thought that was sometimes unnecessarily defensive in his approach to batting and that he was at his best when driving hard. His South Australian and Australian teammateGeorge Giffen thought that no Australian'scut shots travelled faster pastpoint.[1]
Darling is a remarkable combination of stolidity and power. His driving, whenever he choose to let himself loose, is tremendous, and no left-handed batsman, at any rate in our time, has possessed quite such a defence. He always gives one the idea of being a great natural hitter, who has rigorously schooled himself to play the steady game.
— Wisden Cricketers' Almanack[21]
Darling holds the record for the most innings in a complete Test Match career (60), without being dismissedlbw.[40]
Darling had a strong personality and an independent outlook. Those who knew him well thought him destined to be a leader in whatever he undertook. He shunned strong drink and tobacco and found it difficult to tolerate overindulgence in alcohol. Normally even-tempered, he did show displeasure at the heckling from the crowd at Lord's at his obstinate defensive effort in the face of an Australian batting collapse.[1] He was a stickler for fair play, but his actions against the English batsmanKS Ranjitsinhji would today be seen asgamesmanship. During the bowler's approach and after the bowler had looked at the field, the Australian fielders moved behind Ranjitsinhji's back. This worried the Indian prince when playing hisleg glance and eventually saw him left out of the English team.[1]
The journalistRay Robinson wrote that "of all Australian captains he came closest to being a disciplinarian".[1] Regardless, his teammates continued to select him as captain, trusting in his knowledge and understanding of the game. On a wet day during the 1899 tour, a delay in play saw some of the Australians accept an invitation to thePlayer's tobacco factory in Nottingham. While away, the weather cleared and play began with Darling leading a team of five Australians and five substitutes onto the field. Darling later called a team meeting that saw the culprits fined £5 for breaching team rules.[1] His approach to the hard-drinkingErnie Jones was similarly tough. To ensure that the fast bowler would not drink to excess, he selected Jones astwelfth man in a match against an English county team. When Jones refused to play, a team meeting saw him facing expulsion from the team. Darling spoke to him privately and made it clear that without an apology to his teammates and a promise to curb his drinking, he would be on the next boat bound for Australia.[27] The firm and prompt action had a lasting effect on team discipline during his time as Australian captain.[1]Wisden noted that "as a captain he inspired his men to reveal their best form."[41] As a captain he was a reformer, suggesting rule changes that included making six runs the reward for clearing the boundary rather than the entire ground, and using of sawdust to fill holes in bowler's run-ups.[37]
| Preceded by | Australian Test cricket captains 1899–1901/2 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Australian Test cricket captains 1902–1902/3 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Australian Test cricket captains 1905 | Succeeded by |
| Tasmanian Legislative Council | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Member forCambridge 1921–1946 | Succeeded by |
| International | |
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| People | |
