Arthur Mailey

{{short description|Australian cricketer (1886–1967)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=May 2018}} {{Use Australian English|date=March 2017}} {{Infobox cricketer | name = Arthur Mailey | image = Studio Portrait of Arthur Mailey, ca. 1925.jpg | caption = Mailey in around 1925 | country = Australia | fullname = Alfred Arthur Mailey | nickname = | birth_date = {{Birth date|df=yes|1886|01|03}} | birth_place = Zetland, New South Wales, Australia | death_date = {{Death date and age|df=yes|1967|12|31|1886|01|03}} | death_place = Kirrawee, New South Wales, Australia | heightcm = 174 | batting = Right-handed | bowling = Right-arm leg break and googly | role = Bowler | international = true | testdebutdate = 17 December | testdebutyear = 1920 | testdebutagainst = England | testcap = 108 | lasttestdate = 14 August | lasttestyear = 1926 | lasttestagainst = England

| club1 = New South Wales | year1 = {{nowrap|1912/13–1929/30}}

| date = 23 March | year = 2017 | source = http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/player/6465.html ESPNcricinfo }} '''Alfred Arthur Mailey''' (3 January 1886{{spaced ndash}}31 December 1967) was an Australian cricketer who played in 21 Test matches between 1920 and 1926.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article21039605 |title=ARTHUR MAILEY. |newspaper=The Brisbane Courier |issue=21,334 |location=Queensland, Australia |date=11 June 1926 |access-date=7 June 2018 |page=13 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref>

Mailey used leg-breaks and googly bowling, taking 99 Test wickets, including 36 in the 1920–21 Ashes series. In the second innings of the fourth Test at Melbourne, he took nine wickets for 121 runs, which is still the Test record for an Australian bowler.<ref>{{cite web|title=Australian Test records – Best bowling figures in an innings|url=http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/records/bowling/best_figures_innings.html?class=1;id=2;type=team|publisher=ESPNcricinfo|access-date=12 March 2017}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article22609957 |title=ARTHUR MAILEY. |newspaper=The Queenslander |issue=2846 |location=Queensland, Australia |date=19 March 1921 |access-date=7 June 2018 |page=3 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref>

In first-class cricket at Cheltenham during the 1921 tour, he took all ten Gloucestershire wickets for 66 runs in the second innings. His 1958 autobiography was accordingly titled ''10 for 66 and All That'' (an allusion to the humorous book of English history, ''1066 and All That'').

He also holds the record for the most expensive bowling analysis in first-class cricket. Bowling for New South Wales at Melbourne in 1926–27 as Victoria scored the record first-class total of 1107, Mailey bowled 64 eight-ball overs, did not manage a maiden and took 4 for 362.<ref name="Frindall">{{cite book|last1=Frindall|first1=Bill|title=The Wisden Book of Cricket Records|date=1998|publisher=Headline Book Publishing|location=London|isbn=0747222037|pages=264|edition=Fourth}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Victoria v New South Wales at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, 24–29 Dec 1926|url=http://static.espncricinfo.com/db/ARCHIVE/1920S/1926-27/AUS_LOCAL/SS/VIC_NSW_SS_24-29DEC1926.html|publisher=ESPNcricinfo|access-date=23 March 2017}}</ref> He said that his figures would have been much better had not three sitters been dropped off his bowling – "two by a man in the pavilion wearing a bowler hat" and one by an unfortunate team-mate whom he consoled with the words, "I'm expecting to take a wicket any day now."

thumb|left|Arthur Mailey c1910 Beginning his working life at the age of 13 as a trouser presser, then was a glass blower and subsequently a Water Board labourer, he became a talented writer and artist. Between 1920 and 1953, he published a number of booklets of cartoons of cricketers of his time.<ref>{{cite web|first=John|last=Arlott|title=A cricket treasury|url=http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/story/239755.html|publisher=ESPNcricinfo|date=6 March 1980|access-date=23 March 2017}}</ref>

<blockquote> "Someone dubbed him the man who bowled like a millionaire, and how true it was! Arthur's objective was to take wickets, and the spending of runs in the process bothered him little. For a relatively small man Arthur had abnormally large hands, soft as silk to the touch, and he once told me he didn't know what it was to have tired or sore fingers". Don Bradman<ref>Bradman, Donald (1977) Introduction to E.W. Swanton, ''Swanton in Australia with MCC 1946–75'', Fontana. {{ISBN|0006345166}}.</ref> </blockquote>

Mailey married Miss Maud Hinchcllffe in 1912. They had three sons, and a daughter.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article11175769 |title=ARTHUR MAILEY'S WIFE DEAD |newspaper=The Argus (Melbourne) |issue=28,562 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=8 March 1938 |access-date=7 June 2018 |page=2 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref>

He also ran a mixed business which included a butcher on Woolooware Road, Burraneer. The back lane behind Woolooware Road and the shops there was officially named Dominic Lane in 2011, but until then had had the unofficial name of “Googly Manor Lane”. When the area was subdivided in 1954 the owner was an “Arthur Albert Mailey”, and very likely the subject of this article.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Spatial Services Team at Sutherland Shire|date=July 2020|title=Sutherland Shire Origin of Street names|url=https://cms.ssc.nsw.gov.au/files/sharedassets/website/document-library/roads/naming/sutherland-shire-street-name-origins.pdf|access-date=29 September 2021|website=Sutherland Shire Origin of Street names}}</ref>

Mailey died in Kirrawee, New South Wales on 31 December 1967.

==References== {{reflist}}

==External links== *{{Commons category-inline|Arthur Mailey}} * {{ESPNcricinfo|id=6465}} * [https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/mailey-alfred-arthur-7464 Mailey, Alfred Arthur (Australian Dictionary of Biography)] * {{YouTube|id=ooK3_51itk4&t=1s|title=Brief film of Mailey bowling}} (1:54 to 2:22)

{{Australian first-class cricket season leading wicket-takers (1900–01 to 1949–50)}} {{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mailey, Arthur}} Category:1886 births Category:1967 deaths Category:Australia Test cricketers Category:Australian sports cartoonists Category:Australian cricketers Category:Cricket writers Category:Cricketers from Sydney Category:Cricketers who have taken ten wickets in an innings Category:New South Wales cricketers Category:Sportsmen from New South Wales Category:20th-century Australian sportsmen