Australian cricket legend Arthur Morris has died aged 93.
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To the end, Morris was a purist, saying Twenty20 cricket was not his “scene”.
Morris went on to make 196 while Bradman was left with his famous career test average of 99.94.
He is best known for his role in Don Bradman’s Invincibles side – he was Australia’s leading run scorer on the undefeated Ashes tour in 1948.
“We have sadly lost a cherished link with our past”, Cricket Australia Chairman Wally Edwards commented yesterday.
With Morris’ death, 86-year-old Neil Harvey is the last member of the Invincibles team still living and Len Maddocks, aged 89, is Australia’s oldest surviving test cricketer. In a 46-Test career from 1946-1955, Morris stroked 3,533 runs, including 12 centuries and as many half-centuries. “When Australia’s best openers are discussed his name will always be one of the first mentioned”, Edwards said.
He was named in the Australian Cricket Board’s Team of the Century in 2000 and was inducted into the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame in 2001.
The highest of his 12 Test centuries came when he reached 206 against England in Adelaide in 1950-51, having been handed a coaching manual on how to bat by Bedser.
Edwards offered condolences on behalf of CA to Morris’ widow, Judith, and his extended family.
“He will be greatly missed but remembered forever”.
During his debut against Queensland in 1940, Morris made 148 in the first innings and 111 in the second.
Born in Bondi on 19 January 1922, Morris moved around New South Wales with his schoolteacher father until settling back in Sydney as a teenager.
That breakthrough was followed by twin centuries in the next match in Adelaide.
In 1951-52, Morris achieved yet another feat when he was appointed as the captain of Australia on a stand-in basis.
He spent numerous final years of his life around the NSW central coast with wife Judith.
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He was too ill to attend a ceremony at the SCG on Wednesday to officially open the Arthur Morris Gates at the ground.
