Johnny Douglas took a while to establish himself in first-class cricket, but he rose to become captain of England and was a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1915.
Johnny Douglas took on the unenviable job of England captain in the post-First World War Ashes series. In all, he played in 23 Tests, scoring 962 runs and taking 45 wickets.
John William Henry Tyler Douglas was born on the 3rd of September, 1882. The position Mr. Douglas now holds in the cricket world has been won by sheer hard work and perseverance. He was not by any means a youthful wonder who, like AG Steel, might fitly have played for England the year he left school.
It is true that he did very well at Felsted, but in first-class cricket his powers were slow to ripen. He was given his first trials for Essex in 1901, playing three times in August. His first match was the memorable one at Leyton, in which George Hirst, who had just developed his deadly swerve, played havoc with the Essex batsmen. No one could look at him, Essex being got rid of for totals of 30 and 41. Douglas was bowled by Hirst in each innings and did not make a run.
This was a disheartening start for a schoolboy, but a week later Douglas made amends by scoring 61 not out against Derbyshire at Chesterfield. In his three matches in 1901 he was not tried as a bowler. Nothing was seen of him in the Essex eleven in the following year and, though he played in eleven matches in 1903, he met with little success either as batsman or bowler.
On the testimony of Mr. Warner, it was this swerve that, more than anything else, accounted for his wonderful success against the Players at Lord’s last July. Mr Douglas is even more famous as a boxer than as a cricketer. Like his father before him, he was middleweight amateur champion, and in 1908 he won the Olympic middleweight championship in London.
He has given up public boxing now, but the value of the experience he gained can be seen in his cricket. Having for three or four years known what it was to be thoroughly trained, he always looks fitter than any other man in the field, and nothing shakes his nerve. When the war broke out Mr Douglas joined the Bedford Regiment.
