Arthur Morris: ‘One of the best-liked cricketers of all time’ – Almanack

In the decade immediately following the Second World War, left-hander Arthur Morris vied with Len Hutton for the title of Test cricket’s best opening batsman. Strong on the back foot, he was the leading scorer for Don Bradman’s 1948 Invincibles – when his 696 Test runs trumped even the Don (508). By the end of the series Morris’s average was 74 and, if that tailed off a little, he remained a heavy scorer – and an immensely popular teammate and opponent.

By nature he was an artistic batsman, although he could also be destructive. Jack McHarg’s biography was subtitled An Elegant Genius, but the English journalist Denzil Batchelor wrote: “Strange that one so essentially pink and cherubic should wield a bat with so richly a basso voice. Arthur Morris should, from the look of him, be a caresser of leg-glides, a fingerer of porcelain-fine late cuts; instead he is the author of weighty pulls worthy of a whole fleet of Volga boatmen, and a driver of proconsular imperiousness.” Batchelor’s purple prose might have been describing Morris’s onslaught on the Queensland attack to finish a match at Sydney in January 1949 when, instead of a leisurely stroll to a target of 143, he blazed an unbeaten 108 in 82 minutes.

He spent a long period in the motor trade, then played a significant part in the introduction of tenpin bowling to Australia, before finishing in PR. He remained an honoured guest at cricket grounds everywhere, his dignity never puffing up into pomposity, thanks to an acute sense of the ironic and the whimsical. He was appointed MBE in 1974, and was a member of the Sydney Cricket and Sports Ground Trust for 22 years. Three days before he died, the Arthur Morris Gates were unveiled as a tribute to his long association with the SCG. When his wife asked why he had four gates named after him, he shot back that it was “because I was an opener”.

Morris was the oldest surviving Australian Test player, a distinction that passed to the former wicketkeeper Len Maddocks* – although Harvey, Morris’s friend and team-mate in 35 Tests, was the last surviving Invincible. “You wouldn’t find a nicer bloke in the world,” he said. “A great sense of humour, a great team man.”