Arthur Mailey

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Arthur Mailey Australia (AUS)

Batting style	Right-hand bat
Bowling type	Legbreak googly
	Tests	First-class
Matches	21	158
Runs scored	222	1530
Batting average	11.09	12.33
100s/50s	0/0	0/3
Top score	46*	66
Balls bowled	6119	36285
Wickets	99	779
Bowling average	33.91	24.09
5 wickets in innings	6	61
10 wickets in match	2	16
Best bowling	9/121	10/66
Catches/stumpings	14/0	157/0
Test debut: 17 December 1920 Last Test: 14 August 1926 Source: Cricinfo

Arthur Alfred Mailey (born January 3, 1886 in Zetland, New South Wales, died December 31, 1967 in Kirrawee, New South Wales) was an Australian cricketer who played in 21 Tests between 1920 and 1926.

Mailey used leg-break 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 a record for an Australian bowler against England.

Cover of Mailey sketchbook

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 Ten for 66 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. 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."

Beginning his working life as a 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. [1]