Carter Hanson “Sammy” Image 5 New South Wales 1921

Description

Northowram, Yorkshire born wicket-keeper Hanson “Sammy” Carter was born in England but emigrated to Australia, first playing for New South Wales in 1897-98. He played his club cricket for Waverley and became a regular in the State team. He toured England as early as 1902 when he was understudy to Jim Kelly, and he had to wait five years before making his Test debut having been controversially omitted from the 1905 tour when the first choices were selected largely on the basis that “they went to the right schools”.

He made his Test debut against England at Sydney in December 1907 and played all five Tests against England on their 1907-08 tour. He played a total of 28 Tests for Australia, his final appearance being against South Africa in November 1921, although he was also left out of the 1912 tour as a punishment for being one of the rebels who insisted on the right to pick their own manager. He resumed his Test career for the last two Tests against England in 1920-21, although he was nearly 43, and toured England in 1921, playing four Tests, and South Africa in 1921-22, playing his last two Tests. When England met Australia at Headingley in 1921, he was the only Yorkshireman playing in the match. In all he took 44 catches and 21 stumpings in 28 Test matches.

As a keeper he was first rate, although he didn’t stand as close to the stumps as most of his peers. He was the first wicket-keeper to squat on his haunches rather than bend over from the waist. His batting, notable for a famous over-the-shoulder scoop for which he is often credited with its invention, was fairly limited, although he did score three fifties in his first four Tests. His highest Test score was 72, batting at number 3 as nightwatchman, against England in Adelaide in January 1912. His highest first class score was 149 for New South Wales against Queensland in 1904-05.

In 1932, at the age of 54, he toured the U.S. and Canada with an unofficial side captained by Vic Richardson. In a career of 128 first class matches, Carter made 270 dismissals, 181 caught and 89 stumped. He scored 2,897 runs at an average of 20.11 with two centuries and thirteen half centuries.

In 1946 the England captain Wally Hammond and Major Rupert Howard (Secretary of Lancashire County Cricket Club and M.C.C. tour manager) went to visit Sammy Carter in Sydney. The wicketkeeper of Warwick Armstrong’s 1921 Australians, who now used a wheelchair, had donated £1,000 to the restoration of the Old Trafford cricket ground which had been bombed during the War. They wished to give him their personal thanks.