Jack Saunders — 123 Wickets in England 1902, Australia's Forgotten Spinner

Saunders began his career with the Victorian Sheffield Shield side in 1899. He was a left-arm slow-medium bowler relying on flight, drift and turn, with a slightly questionable arm action that was a recurrent topic of newspaper comment but never formally called.

He earned his living outside cricket and was rarely available for full domestic seasons.

Joe Darling's 1902 tour of England was one of the strongest Australian touring sides ever assembled. Trumper, Hill, Noble, Trumble, Armstrong and Saunders were all in form. The tour produced two Ashes wins (Sheffield and Old Trafford) and the famous draw at Old Trafford in which Saunders' fourth ball settled the result.

John Victor Saunders, born in Melbourne in 1876, was Australia's premier left-arm spinner of the early 1900s. He played 14 Tests between 1902 and 1908 and took 79 wickets at 22.73. His action was unorthodox — he bowled with what some umpires considered a bent arm — and his career was clouded by occasional no-ball calls for throwing. But his results, especially in 1902, were beyond dispute.

On the 1902 tour of England, Saunders was Joe Darling's first-choice spinner alongside the off-spinner Hugh Trumble. He took 123 first-class wickets at 16.95, with five-or-more in an innings 10 times. In the Ashes Tests he took 18 wickets, including the wicket of Fred Tate to win the fourth Test at Old Trafford by three runs. (Tate played one ball, missed a swipe at the second, edged the third for four, and was bowled by Saunders' fourth.)

Saunders was no less effective abroad. In the 1902-03 South Africa Tests immediately after the English tour, he took 7 for 34 in the Johannesburg Test, bowling unchanged through South Africa's innings of 83. He toured England again in 1905 (124 wickets at 18.30) but his Test career fizzled afterwards. Domestic earnings limited the time he could spend on cricket; he played his last Test in 1908. He died in 1927, aged 51.

“Saunders bowled with marked success throughout the season.”

Saunders did not tour England again after 1905. He continued in Sheffield Shield cricket sporadically until 1909-10. The questionable arm action was never tested formally, but the suspicion may have limited his selection in later years.

His 1908 Test was Australia's fifth Ashes Test of that series at Sydney; he took two wickets and was not picked again. He died of cancer in 1927, aged 51.