Alex Massie Alex Massie

The Keats of Cricket


1st May 1930: Australian opening batsmen Bill Woodfull (1897 – 1965, left) and Archie Jackson (1909 – 1933) going out to bat against Worcester at Worcester. Photo: E. F. Corcoran/Topical Press Agency/Getty Images.

The other day Patrick Kidd wrote a nice post on cricket and the outbreak of the Second World War, but, speaking of cricketing heartbreak, Saturday was the 100th anniversary of Archie Jackson’s birth.

Poor Jackson. We’ll never know what might have been and, of course, it’s that sense of if that lends his story its power. It’s not quite right to say that Jackson’s premature death was a tragedy since the rules of tragedy demand that the protagonist earns his downfall; Jackson, struck down by tuberculosis and dead at 23, was an innocent victim, dealt a rotten hand by fate.

The suggestion that he would have eclipsed Bradman had he lived must be taken with a generous helping of salt. Since no-one else has come close to matching Bradman’s wieght of runs we may surmise that Jackson would not have done so either. But runs are only one measurement of greatness and all agree that they’re an inadequate means of judging the impact young Archie Jackson made on all those who watched him bat.

The finest cricketer ever born in Rutherglen – and all Scotland for that matter – was an artist at the crease and, according to Bradman, “a batting genius”. Some batsmen accumulate and others grind, but the elegance and grace with which Jackson danced at the crease left even his victims with little choice but to admire the style with which he put them to the sword. Harold Larwood often said that the cover drive with which Jackson, aged 19 and playing in his first test, brought up his century at Brisbane in 1928 was as good a shot as any batsman ever made against him.

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