Arthur Carr was an abrasive but inspiring captain of Nottinghamshire who nurtured the talents of Harold Larwood and helped to shape England’s Bodyline plans. He was a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1923.
Mr. Arthur William Carr, to whom the season of 1922 brought such a marked increase of reputation, is an exception to the vast majority of Notts cricketers inasmuch as he plays for the county under the residential qualification.
He was born at Mickleham, in Surrey, on the 21st of May, 1894. He went to school at Sherborne and curiously enough was captain at every game except cricket. Still it was at cricket that he chiefly excelled. Not since his day, nor for many years before, has Sherborne turned out such a batsman. Mr Carr says that he owed much to the teaching of Tom Bowley, the old Surrey bowler, and that he also received excellent advice from Freeman of Essex, who followed Bowley as the school coach.
Under excellent tuition his powers ripened so rapidly that in 1910, when only 16, he headed the Sherborne batting with an average of 45. In the following year – his last at school – he did even better as, with a huge innings of 224 to help him, he averaged 62. While still at Sherborne he made a few appearances for Notts and late in the season of 1913 he left no doubt as to his potential force, hitting up a dazzling 169 against Leicestershire at Trent Bridge.
In 1921 he got on very much better and last summer, as everyone knows, his batting and fielding for the Gentlemen at Lord’s gave him a higher place in English cricket than had ever been his before. His straight driving could almost have been described as the restoration of a lost art. Nothing quite so alarming to the bowlers had been seen since KL Hutchings was in his prime.
