Duff Reggie Image 5 New South Wales 1902

Description

Botanic Gardens, Macquarie, Sydney born right-hand batsman Reggie Duff was at the turn of the century one of Australia’s best batsmen. He made his debut in State cricket for New South Wales in the 1899-1900 season

Reggie Duff made a sensational Test debut against England at Melbourne in January 1902 when he made 104 in the second innings, and became the first No. 10 to score a Test hundred, this being one of only four centuries from that low in the order made by anyone. He was only the third Australian to score a century on his Test debut. The circumstances were unusual in that Duff was a frontline batsman who had been held back because of a sticky wicket. With Warwick Armstrong he added 120 for the last wicket as Australia won by 299 runs. Abul Hasan of Bangladesh became the second man to score a Test century at debut at No. 10 in 2012.

He toured England in 1902 and 1905 with great success, scoring more than 1,000 runs on both visits and making his only other Test century, and highest Test score of 146 in his final Test at The Oval in August 1905, but Wisden noted that “he was never the same again after the second trip” and within two seasons he had left the first class game even though he was still not 30.

The truth was that Duff was an alcoholic whose cricket was greatly affected by his drinking. Following his retirement in 1908 his condition rapidly deteriorated and he died broke and broken aged 33 in 1911. His former New South Wales colleagues paid for his funeral.

In 22 Test matches for Australia, of which all but 3 against South Africa in the autumn of 1902 were played against England, he scored 1,317 runs at an average of 35.59, with 6 half centuries in addition to his two hundreds. He also took 4 wickets with his occasional right-arm medium pace bowling at 21.25 a piece with a best of 2-43. In 121 first class matches he scored 10 centuries and 33 half centuries, with 6,589 runs scored at an average of 35.04 and a top score of 271. He took 14 wickets with a best performance of 2-17, and took 73 catches in the first class game, of which 14 were in Test matches.