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Full name Douglas Ward Carr
Born March 17, 1872, Cranbrook, Kent
Died March 23, 1950, Salcombe Hill, Sidmouth, Devon (aged 78 years 6 days)
Major teams England,Kent
Batting style Right-hand bat
Bowling style Legbreak googly
Education Sutton Valence; Brasenose College, Oxford
Batting and fielding averages
Mat
Inns
NO
Runs
HS
Ave
100
50
4s
6s
Ct
St
Tests
1
1
0
0
0
0.00
0
0
0
0
0
0
First-class
58
68
18
447
48
8.94
0
0
19
0
Bowling averages
Mat
Inns
Balls
Runs
Wkts
BBI
BBM
Ave
Econ
SR
4w
5w
10
Tests
1
2
414
282
7
5/146
7/282
40.28
4.08
59.1
0
1
0
First-class
58
10718
5585
334
8/36
16.72
3.12
32.0
31
8
Career statistics
Only Test
England v Australia at The Oval, Aug 9-11, 1909 scorecard
Test statistics
First-class span
1909 - 1914
Profile
Douglas Carr's brief career was one of cricket's more remarkable stories. He played as a right-arm medium-pace bowler at Oxford - a football-related knee injury meant he didn't make any first-class appearances - and thereafter meandered his way through very average club cricket around Maidstone. In 1908 he decided to experiment with the fairly new googly, and the following May he made such an impact in club games that Kent offered him a trial - he was by then 37. He took 5 for 65 against his old University on debut, and followed with eight wickets for Players against Gentlemen. His success brought him an England call-up, and in the final Test at The Oval against Australia he took 7 for 282. He took 60 wickets the following season as Kent won the title, and his career ended with the outbreak of the war in 1914.
Named one of Wisden's Five Cricketers of the Year in 1910, he said: ""I was always a legbreak bowler of sorts, but often used to bowl medium-fast stuff. I started trying to acquire the 'googly' about four years ago, and practised hard all that winter and the following spring, only to find that directly I had got the offspin I lost the old legbreak entirely - in fact for that season I hardly made the ball turn at all either way. In the following year I got a bit better, and in August 1908 I really got the thing going, and met with some success in club cricket. I am quite certain of one thing, and that is that in a very short time everybody will be quite able to distinguish between the two breaks."
Martin Williamson
