Mills Jackie Image 1 Auckland 1931

Description

Dunedin, Otago, New Zealand born left-handed opening batsman Jackie Mills played for Auckland from 1924-25 to 1937-38, and toured England with the New Zealand teams of 1927 and 1931, scoring over 1,000 runs on each tour. In an Auckland club match for Eden against University in 1924-25, Mills and Hector Gillespie shared an opening stand of 441. In the first match of the 1929-30 season he scored 185, his career highest score, in an innings victory for Auckland over Otago. He scored more than half of Auckland’s total of 356, and more than Otago’s two innings combined.

He was the first New Zealander to make a Test century on debut. He scored 117 for New Zealand against England at Basin Reserve, Wellington, New Zealand, in the Second Test in January 1930, and he and Stewie Dempster put on 276 for the first wicket, which remained the highest for New Zealand until 1972, when Glenn Turner and Terry Jarvis put on 387 against West Indies at Georgetown. However, Mills’ next nine Test innings produced only 124 runs and he played his seventh and final Test against England at Auckland in March 1933, averaging 26.77 in Test match cricket.

Dick Brittenden said of him: “Mills, lean and graceful, never seemed sufficiently robust for the demands of test cricket; he could probably claim to be the only test batsman who habitually wore wool, from neck to ankle, next to the skin. But if his batting looked effete, it was effective. A most graceful driver and cutter, he had the left-hander’s penchant for the hook. Spare and frail he was, but there was tremendous power which came from some hidden source; he was New Zealand’s nearest approach to Woolley.”

In 97 first class matches, Mills scored 5,025 runs at an average of 32.84 with 11 centuries and 25 half centuries, also taking 4 wickets with his occasional bowling at 30.75 apiece with a best return of 2-57, taking 30 catches in first class play.

Jackie Mills’s father George was an all-rounder who played for Auckland in the 1890’s and 1900’s and was the groundsman at Eden Park in Auckland.

NB in the photograph Jackie Mills (right) walks out to bat with Stewie Dempster in New Zealand’s match against H.D.G. Leveson-Gower’s XI at Scarborough in September 1931.

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