The 1948 English cricketing season was dominated by two bowlers, one a New Zealander and the other an Australian - both of whom would never go on to represent their countries at Test level. The two players in question were fast bowler Tom Pritchard (172 wickets at 18.75) and left-arm wrist spinner
Jack Walsh (174 wickets at 19.56), who were arguably the best bowlers Bradman's 1948 Invincibles faced all tour but were fortunate to not encounter during the Tests. Walsh, originally from New South Wales played nearly all of his cricket in England for Leicestershire and claimed 1190 wickets at an average of 24.55 with a staggering 98 five-fers and 26 ten-wicket match hauls during his career - easily the most by a chinaman bowler who never played Test cricket. A sharp turner of the ball, he had two different types of googlies in his arsenal - one lulling the batsman into a false sense of security and the other often proving fatal for most, which made him quite a difficult bowler to pick even for wicket-keepers who kept to his bowling. In addition to all that, he was also a very aggressive if somewhat inconsistent lower-order batsman with 7247 runs at 17.76 (2 centuries and 21 fifties) to his name, and managed to complete the all-rounders double of 100 wickets and 1000 runs at the age of 40 in 1952.
It is unclear as to why he was never considered for the Australian Test team. One reason could be that he played virtually no cricket in Australia post World War II, or aged in his late thirties after it was perhaps considered too old to take a punt on. Chuck Fleetwood-Smith's
horror show in the 1938 Ashes also did no favors to bowlers of his type in the country, with Don Bradman often opting for defensive spinners like Ian Johnson whilst filling his bowling attack with pace bowlers like Ray Lindwall, Bill Johnston and Keith Miller thereafter. He nevertheless had the potential to become a match-winning bowler at Test level, perhaps more so than the likes of Fleetwood-Smith, George Tribe and Lindsay Kline who played Tests for Australia without much success.
VC's XI
1.
George Patterson
2.
Sunny Jim Mackay
3.
Bert Kortlang
4.
Ken McEwan
5.
Ilikena Bula
6.
7.
Ryan Campbell
8.
Bart King
9.
Jack Walsh
10.
11.
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