Charlie Macartney — Three Centuries in Three Tests, 1926 Ashes

Macartney had been recalled to Test cricket in 1920-21 after a four-year gap and had played intermittently for Australia since. By 1926 he was 40 and openly considered this his last English tour; the form he produced suggested otherwise.

Macartney came to England for the 1926 Ashes at the age of 40, with the war and his Trent Bridge 345 of 1921 already behind him. He played the first Test at Trent Bridge in a match washed out by rain. At Lord's he made 133 not out, batting through the second day with Bardsley to give Australia a strong position; the match was drawn.

At Headingley he produced one of the most quoted innings in Test history. Australia were 1 for 1 — Bardsley out first ball — when Macartney walked in. He had been dropped at slip second ball by Carr off Tate. From that life he proceeded to score 100 before lunch on the first day of a Test, an Ashes feat shared at the time only with Trumper at Old Trafford in 1902. His 151, made in 172 minutes, included 21 fours.

At Old Trafford in the fourth Test he made 109 in another rain-affected match. The fifth Test at the Oval was won by England — Hobbs and Sutcliffe famously battling on the sticky wicket and Rhodes recalled at 48 — but Macartney's three-Test sequence had matched Bardsley's earlier feat (1909) of consecutive Ashes hundreds and confirmed his place beside Trumper as the most cavalier of pre-war Australian stylists.

“I told them at the start of the day I was going to hit them, and I did. I had no intention of letting Carr's drop count for nothing.”

Australia lost the series 0-1 after losing the deciding fifth Test at the Oval to England. Macartney played one more Test, in 1926, then retired aged 40. His 7 Test hundreds came at an average of 41.78 in 35 Tests.