Gregory and McDonald — The Pace Pair Who Broke England, 1921

Australia had no reliable spin bowler in 1921. Armstrong's solution was to lean entirely on the two pacemen, with himself bowling some leg-spin in support and Macartney providing flat left-arm orthodox. The new-ball pair was uniquely productive because Armstrong used them in the same spells, often three, four or even five overs each before a change.

Gregory was a 6 ft 4 in giant who took a 13-pace approach and bowled with a leaping delivery so violent that mid-off and gully would step back when he ran in. McDonald, by contrast, glided to the crease with what Neville Cardus called 'an air of beautiful malice'. The two had bowled together at Sydney during the 1920-21 series, but the English summer of 1921 was their joint masterpiece.

At Trent Bridge in May, Australia won by 10 wickets in two days; Gregory took 6 for 58. At Lord's in June, McDonald took 8 wickets and Gregory 4 as Australia won by eight wickets. Headingley belonged to both — Gregory 7 wickets in the match, McDonald 5 — and the Old Trafford and Oval Tests were drawn only because of weather and the resilience of Hobbs and Woolley. The aggregate of 46 Test wickets at sub-25 averages had been seen before only from the great Sydney Barnes, but never from a pair operating in tandem at that pace.

The psychological effect was as great as the statistical one. England batsmen openly described being intimidated; Hampshire's Phil Mead said McDonald's away-swinger was 'a thing you could not see properly until it was past you'. The Marylebone Cricket Club was so shaken by the experience that the search for an English answer began that winter — and ended a decade later with Harold Larwood's leg-theory.

“We faced something we had never seen before — two of them, both fast, both hostile, both at the same time.”

McDonald soon afterwards signed for Lancashire as a professional, becoming one of the most feared county bowlers of the 1920s. Gregory's Test career continued until injury cut it short in 1928. Their 1921 partnership remained the gold standard for opening pace until Lindwall and Miller in the late 1940s.