 | This articlerelies largely or entirely on asingle source. Relevant discussion may be found on thetalk page. Please helpimprove this article byintroducing citations to additional sources. Find sources: "Arthur Carr" cricketer – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(February 2025) |
 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Personal information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Arthur William Carr | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | (1893-05-21)21 May 1893 Mickleham,Surrey, England | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Died | 7 February 1963(1963-02-07) (aged 69) West Witton,Yorkshire, England | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Batting | Right-handed | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Bowling | Right arm medium | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| International information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| National side | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Test debut | 23 December 1922 v South Africa | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Last Test | 17 August 1929 v South Africa | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Career statistics | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Source:Cricinfo,5 August 2020 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Arthur William Carr (21 May 1893 – 7 February 1963)[1] was an Englishcricketer. He played for theNottinghamshire County Cricket Club and theEnglish cricket team, captaining both sides.
A promising youngbatsman, Carr was given his first game offirst-class cricket for Nottinghamshire in 1910, while still at school. He played well and was rewarded with the captaincy of Nottinghamshire in 1919.
Carr was selected for England's tour ofSouth Africa in 1922–23, and made his debut in the firstTest against theSouth African cricket team. He was named aWisden Cricketer of the Year for 1923.
For theAshes series againstAustralia in 1926, Carr was named captain of England. In the third Test at Leeds, he controversially put Australia into bat after winning the toss, and compounded it by dropping Charlie Macartney at slip in the first over of the match. Macartney scored a hundred before lunch and England were lucky to avoid defeat. He came down with tonsillitis during the fourth Test of the series, and although he recovered in time for the fifth Test, was replaced as captain byPercy Chapman. He was bitterly disappointed with this decision, and although he captained England twice more in his final two Tests against South Africa in 1929, from then on he put most of his effort into captaining Nottinghamshire into a dominant position within the EnglishCounty cricket competition.
In 1930 and the following years, Carr was instrumental in developing theBodyline bowling tactic together with future England captainDouglas Jardine and the two Nottinghamshirefast bowlersHarold Larwood andBill Voce.[citation needed] Carr used this tactic of instructing his bowlers to aim at the bodies of batsmen and placing a close set field on theleg side to take catches fended away from the body with the bat and perfected it as he led Nottinghamshire to success in the county competition.[citation needed] Jardine then used Larwood and Voce in similar fashion on the 1932–33 English tour of Australia, the tactic resulting in injuries to Australian batsmen and raising the ire of the Australian public.
After this tour and the subsequent fallout, Carr was subjected to Bodyline bowling by other English county teams, and was severely shaken by several balls that nearly hit him on the head.[citation needed] He denounced the tactic he had helped develop as unfair.[citation needed] Dissension within the Nottinghamshire club over his role in Bodyline led him being sacked as captain in 1934, and he never played first-class cricket again.[citation needed]
Carr played 11 Test matches, scoring 237 runs at an average of 19.75. His first-class career spanned 468 matches, and in this he made 21,051 runs at an average of 31.56 including 45 hundreds. He also bowled medium pace occasionally at first-class level, taking 31 wickets at an average of 37.09.
| Sporting positions | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | English national cricket captain 1926 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Nottinghamshire County cricket captain 1919–1934 | Succeeded by |
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
