100 Not Out

GH on (probably) Australia's oldest first-grade cricketer

Many cricketers make centuries of runs; vanishingly few make centuries of years. Today the latter landmark is reached by Bert Alderson, who made more than 14,000 runs in twenty-seven seasons of Sydney first-grade for Central Cumberland, now Parramatta, and Sydney University, giving it away in his fiftieth year. Fifty years on and he still gets out to matches and celebrations. Here he is next in a blue blazer to his old mate Doug Walters, being felicitated in 2020.

Considering Bert’s career is a bit like stepping into Wisden. He started in the fourths at Cumberland in 1939-40 when he was still a student at Parramatta High School. On 30 December it will be eighty years since Bert had the privilege of being bowled for a duck by Ray Lindwall playing for New South Wales against Australian Services. The consolation was that he was opening with Sid Barnes and being captained by Bill O’Reilly having fielded through a hundred by Bill Brown.

Bert was playing for Cumberland when Richie Benaud broke through into first-grade, alongside Richie’s father Lou; he was playing when Richie enjoyed his first bag and sizeable total. He also top-scored when Richie made his first appearance at the SCG representing the NSWCA versus NSW Great Public Schools in December 1948. Notably Bert was a member, standing at the extreme left, of the first team Richie that captained at Cumberland in 1953-54. It’s so long ago that Richie hasn’t started undoing the third button on his shirt.

In those days in grade cricket, ‘the circuit’ was restricted by six o’clock closing, and references to ‘chop king’ would have been construed as referring to barbecues. Sport was year round too. When summer gave way to winter, Bert was a formidable short stop, who represented his state in the Claxton Shield in 1961 and 1962 - he’s on the left, below.

Bert had a particularly impressive record at Sydney University, for whom he scored 2991 runs at 43 in two spells - as an undergraduate in 1951-53, and a graduate (and captain) in 1961-1966. There he was studying to be an engineer, ahead of thirty-seven years as the chief engineer of Holroyd Council: today, in appreciation of his civic service, Bert has a Parramatta street named for him. But if you seek his monument, look about you at Merrylands Oval, for whose construction over a creek he arranged, and where a pavilion has been christened in his honour. If there’s an older first-grader, I’m unaware of them. What an innings. Well played, sir.