Tibby Cotter: Fast Bowler, Larrikin, Anzac

AUSTRALIAN MILITARY
Cricket
He served at Gallipoli and Beersheba as a stretcher-bearer and was the only Australian Test cricketer killed in the First World War.
Tibby Cotter was a pioneer fast bowler being the first to bowl bouncers frequently in an intimidatory fashion and to employ a packed slips field. He was an unlikely innovator in that he was a carefree cricketer who disliked practice. He was a dashing tail-order batsman with entertained crowds with his slogging.

Cotter was an uncomplicated man, an undisciplined larrikin, who had his share of brushes with officialdom and the law.

He served at Gallipoli and Beersheba as a stretcher-bearer and was the only Australian Test cricketer killed in the First World War. Although he was a simple man, there were many contradictions about Cotter including the mystery of his death.

On 31 October 1917 the 4th Light Horse Brigade, of which the 12th Regiment was part, captured Beersheba by a brilliant cavalry-style charge. Cotter was there as a stretcher-bearer. At the end of the charge, as troops dismounted to engage the enemy, a Turk shot Cotter dead at close range.

Book chapters
• 1 Introduction • 2 Beginnings • 3 Glebe cricketer • 4 First-class and Test cricketer • 5 1905 tour • 6 Technique of a Fast bowler • 7 Batsman • 8 Rugby player • 9 Cricket politics •10 1909 tour • 11 The cricketer off the field • 12 South Africans in Australia • 13 Enlistment • 14 Mysterious death at Beersheba • 15 After the war
vi, 142 p. : ill., ports. ; 22 cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. 136-140) and index.
Signed by Authors
#141023