Warwick Armstrong
Warwick Windridge Armstrong was an Australian cricketer who played 50 Test matches between 1902 and 1921. An all-rounder, he captained Australia in ten Test matches between 1920 and 1921, and was undefeated, winning eight Tests and drawing two. Armstrong was captain of the 1920–21 Australian team which defeated the touring English 5–0: one of only three teams to win an Ashes series in a whitewash. In a Test career interrupted by the First World War, he scored 2,863 runs at an average of 38.68, including six centuries, and took 87 wickets. He was inducted into the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame in 2000.
Armstrong was a large man and was known as the "Big Ship". He was not a stylish batsman but his strokeplay was effective, with a sound defence and temperament. He bowled leg spin with a gentle action and while not a big turner of the ball, he relied on accuracy to dismiss opponents. He made his Test debut in 1902 against England at the Melbourne Cricket Ground and was selected to tour England later that year where he was named as one of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year. That was the first of four tours of England. He was involved in several altercations with cricket administrators and was one of the "Big Six" who boycotted the 1912 Triangular Tournament in England after a dispute with the Australian Board of Control for International Cricket.
A talented Australian rules footballer, Armstrong briefly represented South Melbourne in the Victorian Football League before playing Test cricket. For much of his cricket career, he was employed as a pavilion clerk by the Melbourne Cricket Club, who allowed him time off to play cricket. Following his retirement from Test and first-class cricket after the successful 1921 tour of England, Armstrong took a position as an agent for a scotch whisky distributor and wrote on cricket for the Sydney Evening News.
Early life
Armstrong was born in the rural Victorian town of Kyneton in 1879, the eldest son of John and his wife Amelia. The marriage was across the sectarian divide, then strong in Australia: John was an Anglican; Amelia was a Catholic. The Armstrong family moved to Melbourne in 1880, settling in the inner suburb of Emerald Hill, Victoria. An inheritance enabled the family to move to a larger house, "Arra Glen" in North Caulfield, Victoria in 1888.Armstrong attended Cumloden School, a respected sporting member of the Schools Association, a group of smaller private schools in Melbourne. By 1893, he had found himself a spot in the school XI and came to the attention of the press, catching the eye of journalists Reginald Wilmot and Tom Horan. Armstrong joined the nearby Caulfield Cricket Club and played in a senior premiership with the club at the age of 15.
The next year, the St Kilda Cricket Club, one of the leading clubs in Melbourne's pennant competition, gave the youthful Armstrong a trial. In the 1896–97 season, Armstrong fell out with St Kilda and returned to Caulfield. His last years of school were at University College.
Leaving school at 19, Armstrong joined his father's former club, South Melbourne, captained by Australian Test captain Harry Trott. Armstrong was an immediate success, scoring 101 runs against University and 173 against his former club, St Kilda. He was selected to represent Victoria against Tasmania in Hobart in January 1899, as one of seven in the squad making their first-class cricket débuts. Armstrong's performance was promising, scoring six and 33 and taking four for 78 in 27 overs.
Armstrong began regular Sheffield Shield cricket in the 1899–1900 season. In his first match against New South Wales in January 1900, he dismissed Syd Gregory with his second delivery and scored 45 runs in the second innings. In the Pennant season for South Melbourne, Armstrong scored 665 runs at an average of 95; this included 145 and six for nineteen against the Melbourne Cricket Club, the largest club in Melbourne whose team included many Test and first-class cricketers.
Representative cricket
Early career
Following his feats against it in 1899–1900, Armstrong was recruited for the next season by the Melbourne Cricket Club. For the next twenty years, on and off the pitch, Armstrong's fortunes were tied to the club, a leading cricketing light in Australia and a bastion of the city's rich and powerful. He scored his maiden first-class century, 118, against South Australia, facing the very fast and physically dangerous bowling of Ernie Jones, and by the end of the 1900–01 season he was a permanent member of the Victorian team.The England cricket team, organised and captained by Archie MacLaren, toured Australia to compete for the Ashes in the summer of 1901–02. The English were considered a poor and undermanned team, but it surprised all by winning the first Test at the Sydney Cricket Ground by an innings and 124 runs. Before the second Test, Armstrong had an excellent all-round performance against New South Wales, dismissing Test players Victor Trumper and Syd Gregory, and then scoring 137 in reply. When the team for the Melbourne Test was announced, Armstrong was selected, making his début with Reggie Duff from New South Wales.
Armstrong made a steady start to Test cricket. Batting at No. 9 on a sticky wicket, he made four not out in the first innings, in an Australian total of 116. In reply, England could only score 61. With the wicket still treacherous, Australia rearranged their batting order to save the better batsmen until conditions improved. The two debutants, Duff and Armstrong, were positioned at 10 and 11, and shared a 120-run partnership for the last wicket, Duff scoring 104 and Armstrong 45 not out. Australia won the Test by 229 runs. Armstrong played in the remaining Tests in the series, narrowly heading the averages with 159 runs at an average of 53, and Australia went on to win comfortably by four matches to one.
Armstrong was selected as part of the Australian cricket team to tour England in 1902. He started the tour well, taking eight for 47 in the second innings against Nottinghamshire, his best bowling figures to that date. The first Test, at Edgbaston was rain-affected and the Australians were lucky to come away with a draw, being dismissed for 36 in their first innings. The rest of the close-fought series was followed with interest by the English public. The second Test at Lord's was rained off, and Australia won the third at Bramall Lane by 143 runs. The final two Tests were nail-bitersAustralia winning the fourth at Old Trafford by only three runs and England earning a consolation victory in the fifth Test at the Oval by one wicket, when last-wicket pair George Hirst and Wilfred Rhodes eked out the final runs. Armstrong had a good tour, making 1,075 runs at 27.56 and taking 72 wickets at an average of 17.90, but the star for the Australians was Victor Trumper, who made 2,570 runs at an average of 48.49 including eleven centuries.
On the return trip to Australia, the touring team stopped in South Africa to play three Tests, the first between the two nations. In the second Test at Johannesburg, Armstrong scored 159, just over half the Australian score of 309 and carried his bat through the innings as Australia won the Test by 159 runs. Australia won the Test series two–nil. On return to Australia for the 1902–03 season, he made 580 runs at an average of 58 and 23 wickets at an average of just over 19. The highlights of his season included 145 against Queensland and a hat-trick against New South Wales.
Plum Warner's English team toured Australia in 1903–04, the first to do so under the auspices of the Marylebone Cricket Club. The strong English team defeated Australia three–two, retrieving the Ashes. Armstrong did not have a good series. He was tormented by Rhodes, who dismissed him eight times in ten meetings for Victoria and Australia that summer. As a result, he was dropped from the Australian XI after the Third Test.
Returning to club cricket, Armstrong found form, scoring 438 in only 455 minutes for Melbourne against University, from a total score of 699 for eight. In the 1904–05 season, Armstrong scored 460 runs at 57.5 for Victoria to secure selection for the 1905 tour of England.
Consolidation and conflict
The 1905 Australians left for England, leaving behind the beginnings of a conflict between players and administrators over control of cricket that would poison the sport in Australia for the next ten years. While previous tours of England had been underwritten by the Melbourne Cricket Club and organised by the players, the new Australian Board of Control was asserting its right to control Australian cricket.Armstrong, finding himself promoted to number five in the batting order, started the tour well with 112 against Nottinghamshire and 248 against Gentlemen of England at Lord's. In the first Test at Trent Bridge, Australia's lack of effective bowling options had Armstrong forced to bowl wide outside the leg stump in an early form of leg theory bowling to prevent the England batsmen from scoring quickly. Bumbling and taciturn, Armstrong maintained an accurate line and length, and put a strangle on both England's run-scoring and the crowd's entertainment. It was a recurrent pattern for the rest of the series, and lead to what was seen by spectators and the press as dull cricket. Batsmen like the imperial Archie MacLaren would kick the ball away contemptuously, but lissome Johnny Tyldesley proved that runs could still made if a batsman employed more enterprise. Hopping away to leg to make room for himself, Tyldesley cut and drove the leg-spinner to great effect in a strategy later used by Don Bradman against the bodyline menace.
Armstrong's tactics were ultimately futile, a Stanley Jackson-inspired England winning the series by two Tests to none. For the season, he scored 1,902 runs at an average of fifty. Regarding his batting, Wisden Cricketers' Almanack said, "The great batsman of the eleven was Armstrong. In form nearly all through the tour, he struck the happy medium, being brilliant without recklessness." The highlight of his tour was a triple century at the Recreation Ground in Bath against Somerset.
When the team returned to Australia, the rift between the players and the Board of Control widened. The dispute saw the English postpone their tour, scheduled for 1906–07. In the midst of all this turmoil, Armstrong continued to impress: on tour with Melbourne Cricket Club in New Zealand, he was described by that country's Herald newspaper as a "team almost in himself". He made 868 runs at an average of 124 to complement his 83 wickets at under ten. He was elected captain of Victoria by his teammates for the match against New South Wales, commencing on New Year's Eve, responding with six for 68 with the ball and then scoring 168 in the second innings as part of a sturdy rearguard effort.
Armstrong found employment with the Department of Home Affairs and, as a result, declared himself unavailable for the next match against South Australia. He was mortified when he found that he had been included in the team and that the Victorian Cricket Association had approached his employer to ask for leave on his behalf, despite his having explicitly instructed the VCA secretary otherwise. Armstrong refused to play and was called to face a disciplinary hearing at the Young and Jackson Hotel. Rightly indignant, he was left unpunished.
The scheduled tour postponed from the previous season kicked off with the arrival of an English team weakened by the withdrawals of a number of leading players. The first Test saw an Australian victory, Armstrong bowling 53 overs and taking four for 92. More squabbling, this time over expenses, followed between Armstrong and the VCA, and the former withdrew from the Boxing Day match against New South Wales. Armstrong sought a £1 per diem, but the VCA held fast at ten shillings. It then mounted a campaign in the Melbourne press, attempting to portray Armstrong as avaricious and once again called him to front a disciplinary commission. Following threats of suspension, Armstrong was forced to apologise to the VCA. The fracas did not affect his form, however: the second Test, starting on New Year's Day, saw Armstrong score 31 and 77 and take five wickets for 89. Despite his efforts, England won a hard-fought Test by one wicket.
Australia took the third Test in Adelaide, and a patient 133 in 289 minutes from Armstrong in the fourth saw Australia clinch the series and win back the Ashes. The margin was four–one, but both teams were criticised by reporters for slow scoring and negative cricket.
Once again, the selection and management of the Australian team to tour England in 1909 caused friction between leading players and the Board of Control. Clem Hill, unwilling to tour on the terms offered by the Board, withdrew his name from consideration. Regardless, the tour was a success, both for the Australians, who won the series two-one, and for Armstrong, who made 1,451 runs at an average of just under 44 and took 133 wickets at an average of 16.40 Wisden Cricketers' Almanack described his role in the tour as "to keep the side together by means of his impregnable defence, and he did exactly what was required, only on rare occasions giving free play to his hitting power. When he likes to let himself loose there is no harder driver in the world".
Armstrong, along with Monty Noble, Tibby Cotter and Bert Hopkins returned home via Sri Lanka, Penang and Singapore, where they were lavishly entertained and comfortably billeted by the elite of the Colony. Their hosts took the cricketers on a trip to the British protectorate of Perak for a shooting expedition where Armstrong contracted malaria. He would suffer relapses throughout the rest of his life.