Arthur Carr (cricketer)

Template:Infobox Historic Cricketer Arthur William Carr (21 May 1893, Mickleham, Surrey, England - 7 February 1963, West Witton, Yorkshire) was an English cricket player. He played for the Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club and the English cricket team, captaining both sides.

A promising young batsman, Carr was given his first game of first-class cricket for Nottinghamshire in 1910, while still at school. He played well and was rewarded with the captaincy of Nottinghamshire in 1919.

Carr was selected for England's tour of South Africa in 1922-23, and made his debut in the first Test against the South African cricket team. He was named a Wisden Cricketer of the Year for 1923.

For the Ashes series against Australia in 1926, Carr was named captain of England. In the third Test at Leeds, he controversially put Australia into bat after winning the toss, and compounded it by dropping Charlie Macartney at slip in the first over of the match. Macartney scored a hundred before lunch and England was lucky to avoid defeat. He came down with tonsillitis during the fourth Test of the series, and although he recovered in time for the fifth Test, was replaced as captain by Percy Chapman. He was bitterly disappointed with this decision, and although he captained England twice more in his final two Tests against South Africa in 1929, henceforth he put most of his effort into captaining Nottinghamshire into a dominant position within the English County cricket competition.

It is uncertain what role Carr played in the development of Bodyline bowling but he was certainly privy to its use in county cricket by his pace bowlers Harold Larwood and Bill Voce. During the 1934 match against the Australians, Voce bowled short and fast leading to complaints from the tourists. Dissension within the Nottinghamshire club over his role in Bodyline led him being sacked as captain in 1934, and he never played first-class cricket again.

Carr played 11 Test matches, scoring 237 runs at an average of 19.75. His first-class career spanned 468 matches, and in this he made 21,051 runs at an average of 31.56 including 45 hundreds. He also bowled medium pace occasionally at first-class level, taking 31 wickets at an average of 37.09.

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