A Flick of the Fingers

The Chequered Life and Career of Jack Crawford

Michael Burns

• Publisher: Pitch Publishing Ltd
• eBook ISBN:
  9781785310638
• Year: 2015

Thanks to his discovery of a collection of scrapbooks and memorabilia, writer and filmmaker Michael Burns is able to relate for the first time the remarkable story of Surrey and England cricketer Jack Crawford. A schoolboy prodigy who took Edwardian cricket by storm, the amateur all-rounder became Surrey's youngest ever centurion and, at 19 years and 32 days, England's youngest Test player. However, a row over captaining a weakened team against the Australians led to a spectacular fallout—and a life ban by his county. Emigration to Australia ensued, where Crawford established himself as one of the world's great all-rounders; yet controversy dogged him, on and off the pitch. Having married and deserted an Adelaide teenage beauty, Crawford then dodged involvement in World War I. He returned to England to divorce, remarry and fade into middle-aged obscurity, but not before playing two of the most remarkable innings of his life.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Dedication
• Acknowledgements
• Prologue: Return Of A Native
• Born In The Asylum
• The Big Stage
• From Classroom To Cape
• The Double Seasons
• A Flick Of The Fingers
• Kangaroo Land
• Where Did It All Go Wrong?
• The Accidental Australian
• Across The Tasman
• Homecoming
• Epilogue: Jack The Obscure
• Bibliography
• Photographs