Joseph Darling was an Australian cricketer who played 34 Test matches as a specialist batsman between 1894 and 1905.
58 Facts About Joe Darling
2.
Joe Darling was captain of the Australian cricket team in England in 1902, widely recognised as one of the best teams in Australian cricket history.
3.
Joe Darling was a stocky, compact man and a strong driver of the ball, playing most of his cricket as an opening batsman.
4.
Joe Darling was a patient batsman and was known for his solid defence, but he was able to score quickly when required.
5.
Joe Darling's captaincy was disciplinarian in nature but his teammates respected his broad cricket knowledge.
6.
Joe Darling's teammates gave him the nickname "Paddy" due to a supposed resemblance to the Australian boxer, Frank "Paddy" Slavin.
7.
Joe Darling was a member of several bodies dedicated to agriculture in Tasmania, including the responsible authority for the Royal Hobart Show.
8.
Joe Darling was a pioneer in activities such as rabbit eradication and pasture improvement.
9.
Joe Darling entered politics in 1921, standing as an independent in the Tasmanian Legislative Council, where he was a forceful speaker.
10.
Joe Darling retained his seat in the Tasmanian Parliament until his death following a gall bladder operation in 1946.
11.
Joe Darling was born on 21 November 1870 in Glen Osmond, South Australia, the sixth son of John Joe Darling, a grain merchant and his wife Isabella, nee Ferguson.
12.
Joe Darling was educated at Prince Alfred College, where he took an interest in cricket.
13.
Joe Darling made only 16 runs, but the manner in which he made them saw senior players hail him as a future champion.
14.
Joe Darling's father, disapproving of Darling's fondness for sport, sent him away from his cricket and Australian rules football teams to spend twelve months at Roseworthy Agricultural School.
15.
Later, Joe Darling worked in a bank for a time and before his father appointed him manager of a wheat farm.
16.
Joe Darling was selected for the South Australian team at age 19, but his father would not allow him time off the farm to play.
17.
Joe Darling opened a sports store on Rundle Street, Adelaide and was selected to represent South Australia in inter-colonial cricket.
18.
The next season, against the touring England team captained by Andrew Stoddart, Joe Darling made 115, his maiden first-class century.
19.
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack stated that Joe Darling "proved himself perhaps the best of present-day left-handed batsmen" during the tour.
20.
Joe Darling started the season poorly, scoring a duck and one against the tourists for South Australia in a match in which teammate Clem Hill scored a double century.
21.
Joe Darling went on to dominate the series with the bat.
22.
Joe Darling reached his century by hitting Johnny Briggs over the eastern gate and into the nearby park.
23.
Joe Darling later hit the first six in a Test in England.
24.
Joe Darling was chosen by his teammates as captain for the 1899 Australian team touring England.
25.
In 1900, his father purchased "Stonehenge", a sheep station covering 10,000 acres in central Tasmania and ordered Joe Darling to run the property on pain of exclusion from his will.
26.
Joe Darling complied with his father's wishes and moved his family to the remote station, 34 kilometres along a dirt track from the nearest town, tiny Oatlands.
27.
Joe Darling stood out of first-class cricket for nearly two years.
28.
Hugh Trumble captained the final two Tests as Joe Darling returned to his farm.
29.
Joe Darling agreed to lead the Australian cricket team in England in 1902.
30.
Joe Darling was dismissed twice by Barnes without scoring, the first Test captain to make a "pair".
31.
Joe Darling brought the field in and Trumble prevented Rhodes scoring from the last three balls of his over.
32.
Joe Darling started the tour in a way that promised great things, but he did not keep up his form and fell a good deal below his standard of 1896 and 1899.
33.
Joe Darling's tremendous hitting power was several times of the utmost value, and very likely in a season of hard wickets he would have had as good a record as ever.
34.
In successive innings, Joe Darling made 0,14,6,4 and 1.
35.
Joe Darling won selection in the touring squad and was named as captain.
36.
Joe Darling's innings included thirteen boundaries, all but one of them being drives.
37.
Joe Darling continued to make runs in Tasmanian club cricket right through middle age.
38.
Joe Darling was contemptuous of the newly formed Australian Board of Control for International Cricket Matches, who he saw as attempting to remove control of international cricket tours from the players.
39.
Joe Darling later represented the Tasmanian Cricket Association as a delegate to the Board of Control.
40.
Joe Darling pioneered measures to eradicate rabbits, an introduced pest then in plague proportions throughout Australia.
41.
Joe Darling was an active member of organisations such as the Tasmanian Stock Holders and Orchardists' Association and the Royal Agricultural Society of Tasmania, the organising body of the Royal Hobart Show.
42.
Joe Darling imported South Australian merino rams to improve his flock, and his wool topped the Hobart sales on several occasions.
43.
In 1919, Joe Darling moved from Stonehenge to Claremont House, around which the Hobart suburb of Claremont later formed.
44.
Joe Darling was elected to the Cambridge electorate in the Tasmanian Legislative Council in 1921 as an independent.
45.
Joe Darling retained his position in the Parliament until his death in 1946.
46.
Joe Darling was recognised by his colleagues as a forceful, no-nonsense speaker.
47.
Joe Darling was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1938 New Year Honours in recognition of his work as a member of the Legislative Assembly.
48.
Joe Darling married Alice Minna Blanche Francis, a wheat farmer's daughter from Mundoora, South Australia in 1893.
49.
Joe Darling was buried at Cornelian Bay Cemetery after a Congregationalist ceremony and was survived by his wife and twelve of his children.
50.
Joe Darling's teammates thought his dark hair, blue eyes and moustache were similar to the boxer, Frank "Paddy" Slavin, and he answered to the nickname "Paddy" during his time in cricket.
51.
Joe Darling's time working on his father's farm had developed his strength.
52.
The left-handed Joe Darling was a strong driver of the ball who showed the batsman the full face of the bat.
53.
Joe Darling's driving, whenever he choose to let himself loose, is tremendous, and no left-handed batsman, at any rate in our time, has possessed quite such a defence.
54.
Joe Darling always gives one the idea of being a great natural hitter, who has rigorously schooled himself to play the steady game.
55.
Joe Darling holds the record for the most innings in a complete Test Match career, without being dismissed lbw.
56.
Joe Darling shunned strong drink and tobacco and found it difficult to tolerate overindulgence in alcohol.
57.
Joe Darling was a stickler for fair play, but his actions against the English batsman KS Ranjitsinhji would today be seen as gamesmanship.
58.
Joe Darling spoke to him privately and made it clear that without an apology to his teammates and a promise to curb his drinking, he would be on the next boat bound for Australia.