Charlie Macartney

Charles George Macartney (27 June 1886 – 9 September 1958) was an Australian cricketer who played in 35 Test matches between 1907 and 1926. He was known as "The Governor-General" in reference to his authoritative batting style and his flamboyant strokeplay, which drew comparisons with his close friend and role model Victor Trumper, regarded as one of the most elegant batsmen in cricketing history. Sir Donald Bradman—generally regarded as the greatest batsman in history—cited Macartney's dynamic batting as an inspiration in his cricket career.

He started his career as a bowling all-rounder. He made his Test debut in 1907, primarily as a left arm orthodox spinner who was considered to be a useful lower-middle order right-hand batsman. As Macartney was initially selected for his flexibility, his position in the batting order was frequently shuffled and he was largely ineffective. His most noteworthy Test contribution in his early career was a match-winning ten wicket haul at Headingley in 1909, before being dropped in the 1910–11 Australian season. It was around this time that Macartney befriended Trumper and began to transform himself from a bowler who batted in a defensive and technically correct manner, into an audacious attacking batsman. He reclaimed his Test position and made his maiden Test century in the same season, before establishing himself as the leading batsman in the team.

The First World War stopped all first-class cricket and Macartney enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force. Upon the resumption of cricket, Macartney stamped himself as one of the leading batsmen in the world with his performances during the 1921 Ashes tour. Macartney produced an Australian record score in England of 345 against Nottinghamshire. The innings was the fastest triple century in first-class cricket and the highest score made by a batsman in a single day of play. He reached 300 in 205 minutes and the innings took less than four hours. Macartney topped the batting averages and run-scoring aggregates, which saw him named as one of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1922. Wisden said that he was, "by many degrees the most brilliant and individual Australian batsman of the present day". After missing the 1924–25 series due to mental illness or a recurrence of war injuries, Macartney departed international cricket at the peak of his powers on the 1926 tour of England. He became the second Australian to score a century in the first session of a Test match, and did so on a sticky wicket conducive to bowling. This was part of a sequence of three consecutive Test centuries as he led the batting charts. Macartney was posthumously inducted into the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame in 2007.