5 Ashes heroes who became renowned cricket writers

#3 Arthur Mailey

Mailey's sketches are extremely famous

Arthur Mailey bowled leg-breaks, googlies and long-hops and always saw the funny side of almost everything that happened on the field of play. He took 99 wickets in Tests, with 36 of them coming against England in the 1920-21 Ashes series. He once took all 10 wickets (for 66 runs) in an innings in a First class match, against Gloucestershire at Cheltenham.

During one of the matches against England, he entered into a pact with team-mate Jack Gregory during the lunch interval. The idea was that his first ball to Hobbs in the second over would be a googly pitched on middle and leg stump. Gregory was to spring around the back of wicket-keeper Oldfield and wait at leg-slip for the catch.

Gregory remembered the plan but Mailey himself forgot about it. He bowled a perfect leg-break and realized the blunder when he saw Gregory moving towards leg-slip. Gregory though somehow managed to remain composed and leaped to his right to take a catch at slip.

After retirement, he traveled with the Australian team to many countries to cover matches for newspapers. He was an able cartoonist and books containing his sketches have become collectors' items at auctions all over the world.

He covered the Bodyline series extensively and wrote a very detailed account in his book titled 'And Then Came Larwood'.

In 1958, he wrote an autobiography and called it '10 for 66 and all that'. It is one of the finest autobiographies written by a Test cricketer.