4th. Aubrey Faulkner
521 points
Batting: 3rd (313 points)
Bowling: 8th (208 points)
What a showing here from Aubrey Faulkner. Is it fuelled by the mystique surrounding all Golden Age players? There were plenty of all-rounders on the scene in the first 60 years of test cricket but few who had the test credentials of Faulkner. His record is interesting and brief, so let's look at it.
Aubrey Faulkner was very much a product of the golden age. His test career reads 1906-1924, but Faulkner played all but one of his 25 tests in a six year span before the war. He began his test career as a bowling all-rounder, mainly batting down at 7. He scored hardly any runs in his first two series, not reaching fifty once in 14 digs. His bowling was impressive during this initial period, and pretty much remained that way until he retired. He was often given the new ball or used first change. I dunno if it was the pitches or if leg-spinners had a different role back then in a side, but I found this fact interesting. Did he flight it or bowl O'Reilly-like fast spin? I'm not really sure what his leggies were like. He averaged a very healthy 26 across his test career. He was a wicket taker with a great strike rate.
Anyway, he had a 3 year gap in tests from 1907 to 1910 due to his country not playing any. He must have spent a lot of time working on his batting because in 1910 he came back with a bang. In his next 11 matches, played across 3 series against England and Australia, he scored 1389 runs @ 70, mainly batting at 3, 4 and 5. He also took 39 wickets during this period @ 30, so for a couple of years he was pretty much the best player in the world(a world featuring Hobbs, Trumper and Barnes) and the difference between South Africa threatening victory or folding in a heap. A crazy all-round peak. His only 4 test centuries(and a 99) came in this period. 2 of his 4 five-fers as well. His batting dropped off heavily after that(at least in tests) while his bowling remained steady.
In contrast with his reliable bowling, he experienced tremendous highs and lows with the bat. A graph of his test batting career resembles a total bell curve. After 8 tests he averaged a mere 20. After 19 he somehow got it up to 51. It then kept dropping and dropping down to 40 by the end. It could have dropped lower if he played in the 13/14 series where Barnes demolished his side, but he didn't. Lucky him. He possessed an ugly yet unique batting technique with an extremely unorthodox grip. He was was said to be very difficult to get out when on song. He's one of only four participants(the other 3 all still yet to appear in this countdown) to have finished in the top half of the field for both batting and bowling.
