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| home | news lAustralia’s Shame - Eddie Gilbert
By Shane Dell 4 May 2005 - He was the cricketer who could have brought the English tourists to their knees during the Bodyline tests over the summer of 1932-33. A viciously fast bowler, who many considered the only man capable of dishing the medicine up to the English batsman when the crowds cried for revenge for their despicable display of Bodyline bowling. There is no doubt had he been given the opportunity, he would have written himself into Australian cricket folklore. A man, many considered to be the fastest bowler in Australia and possibly the world during the 1930's was not only denied the opportunity of playing against the English tourists, but was also, never chosen to represent his Nation. Why? I hear you ask, it's astoundingly simple to answer, because he was a "black man", an Indigenous Australian descended from the traditional owners of the place we all call Australia. I am referring to none other than Eddie Gilbert, an exceptionally gifted fast bowler who was never given the accolades by his peers, which he not only earnt through his cricket achievements, but downright deserved due to his talent with a cricket ball. Eddie Gilbert, one of the only bowlers in history who ever dismissed the great Donald Bradman for a duck. He was so fast with the ball, he is also the only bowler to ever knock the bat from the hands of Bradman, who later said of Eddie, "he sent down the fastest bowling I can remember of that time, he was much faster than Larwood or anyone else". It may be difficult to imagine a bowler who only took 3 to 4 steps, prior to bowling the ball was able to generate such ferocious pace, however, Eddie's deliveries were so fast, he once even injured his own team's wicketkeeper who doubled up in pain after being hit in the stomach by a ball delivered at a blistering pace. In 1931, during the Queensland v West Indies match he returned the excellent figures of 5 for 65, but still he was not considered for selection to the Australian team. Any hope Eddie had of ever representing his country were just that, hopes. I guess it will never be known if Eddie ever knew that his chances of representing Australia were nil. He was a "black man" who dared to be successful and excel at a sport that was considered to be a "gentlemans" game. It would never be accepted by the Cricket Establishment that an Indigenous Australian could be worthy of representing his country, they were going to make sure of that. It remains unknown, exactly who engineered the downfall of Eddie Gilbert, but will long live in the memory of many Australians how it occurred. During a match between Victoria and Queensland at the MCG in 1931, the umpire A.N Barlow, no-balled Eddie, a total of 13 times for what was described as a suspect action. In today’s terms this would be called chucking. From this moment on it was obvious the fate of Eddie was sealed, he was doomed to go the way of every talented indigenous player before him, and there had been plenty. The record books don't actually tell us if Eddie continued to play cricket after this time, but it is very doubtful he did. The only reference available after this match, shows a large gap in the playing career of Eddie Gilbert. He in fact, played no games between 1931 and 1935. His last game is recorded as being played in 1936. On 11 November 1936, Eddie Gilbert was given his final marching orders from the game. In a communication to the authority responsible for the management of Indigenous Australians at the time, the Secretary of the Queensland Cricket Association wrote "The matter of Eddie Gilbert has been fully discussed by the committee and it is decided, with your concurrence, to arrange for his return to the settlement". During this depressing time in Australia's history, all Indigenous persons, were required to live in a controlled area not unlike the Russian Gulags, called a settlement. Better known by many people, as a reservation. Every aspect of their lives was dictated to by the authority known as the Aboriginal Protectorate, subsequently these Indigenous Australians were nothing more than prisoners in their own land. Such was the oppression suffered by these people, Eddie Gilbert was required to obtain written permission every time he wished to travel for the sake of playing a cricket match. The final nail in Eddies coffin was also delivered by the QCA who demanded "the return of his cricket clothes to their office". Not only were the QCA prepared to push one of Australia's finest cricketers out of the game, they also wanted the clothes of his back. Needless to say, Eddie Gilbert disappeared into obscurity. It was not until 1972 that he was heard of again. Eddie was discovered in a mental institution totally incapable of any speach, he had been a resident there for 23 years. On January 9 1978, Eddie Gilbert passed away without even the slightest acknowledgment he had even existed. A shameful fact that should be redressed by cricket authorities and historians alike. Source: http://www.abcofcricket.com How racism destroyed a great cricketer
Review by Phil Shannon November 6, 2002 - Only one bowler has ever knocked the bat out of the hands of Don Bradman, cricket's greatest batter: Eddie Gilbert. Only 15 bowlers have ever dismissed Bradman without a run to his name. Eddie Gilbert was one of them. Yet, whilst Bradman played test cricket for Australia for two decades, Gilbert was never selected to play at the sport's highest level. Gilbert was an Aboriginal Australian, which had a lot to do with this injustice. Gilbert's life, ably retold in Colman and Edward's biography of the great fast bowler, was one of talent denied by the racist society of 1930s Australia. Gilbert's parents were Kanju people from Cooktown in north Queensland, who had been moved to the government-run Barambah Aboriginal settlement in the south-east of the state. It was here that Gilbert was born, lived and died under the restrictive Aborigines Protection Act. This law controlled where and how all Aborigines in Queensland could live and confined them to reserves and settlements (to “smooth the dying pillow” of a “race doomed to extinction” as an 1874 royal commission put it). The settlements' Aborigines were “out of sight, out of mind”. They were used as agricultural labour on white-owned rural properties for little or no wages. Young Aborigines were removed from their parents' traditional cultural influence and schooled in dormitories, Christianised in chapels and integrated into white society through sports, especially the “gentleman's” game of cricket. The Barambah Aboriginal men, however, took to cricket with gusto as a way of demonstrating that they were not inferior to their white government controllers and employers. It was symbolic revenge for “working sun-up to sun-down for tea and flour and rations”. With black pride invested in success against the local white cricket teams, and with the Barambah superintendent keen to display successful Aboriginal cricketers as proof of the “civilising” settlement program, a star Aboriginal cricketer could expect some measure of escape from exploited labour and confinement. Gilbert, with his exceptionally long arms, powerful shoulders and supple wrists from years of boomerang throwing, developed a catapult style of bowling which gave him frightening pace off a very short run. It was an unorthodox style that would later give his enemies scope to blight his cricketing career as a “chucker” (a thrower of the ball). On the concrete wickets of the district cricket competition, Gilbert's sheer pace was near-unplayable and in 1930 he was selected to play for the Queensland state team. Racist prejudice could be temporarily put aside for individual Aborigines who were successful and who, like Gilbert, were obedient, polite and could be presented as “a white man in a black skin”. Gilbert continued to confound classier batters on turf wickets and in the first match of the 1931 season, Gilbert met Bradman. Fresh from a test tour of England — in which he scored one century, two double-centuries and one triple-century — and with his last score against Queensland a monumental 452 not out, the Queenslander awaited a hammering. Until, that is, Gilbert bowled five famous balls at Bradman, including the ones that sat him on his backside, knocked the bat out of his hand and dismissed him for a duck. Bradman later admitted those five balls were the fastest he had ever faced. Bradman turned the tables against Gilbert in 1935 with a 233-run flogging but this was on a batter- friendly Adelaide pitch which had humiliated all quality fast bowlers. On a more sporting Brisbane pitch in 1936, Gilbert again humbled Bradman, dismissing him for 31 runs (only four of which had been scored off Gilbert's bowling). Bradman had dropped himself down the batting order to avoid Gilbert, who was at his most menacing in his early overs. Success on the cricket pitch opened doors to Gilbert that were denied to other Aborigines. In Adelaide, Gilbert once joined his team-mates at a cinema. Arriving late, Gilbert was denied entry by the usher until the manager confirmed his identity and Gilbert was admitted. For some in the cricket establishment, however, Gilbert was too successful. State parochialism nearly ended his career when a Victorian umpire no-balled Gilbert 13 times in three overs for “throwing the ball”, forcing his captain to take him off. Bradman was later to write that he thought Gilbert was a “chucker”. There were many racists prepared to sacrifice Australia's sporting success to racial prejudice by passing over the sensational Gilbert for selection in the test team; the “chucking” allegations were grist to their mill. Part of the racist stereotype of Aborigines was that they were lazy and cheated — no-one could possibly be as fast as Gilbert off four or five paces so he must be bowling illegally, they “reasoned”. The “chucker” albatross has ended the test careers of white cricketers and it certainly hampered Gilbert. Racism was muted but ever-present during Gilbert's temporary admission to white society. Most of his team mates rose above it and accepted Gilbert as an equal. But some did not. One Queensland player refused to ever speak to Gilbert, one batter deliberately tried to run him out in his first game and some refused to share train sleeping compartments, taxis, hotel rooms or dining tables with him. Economic exploitation was also a feature of racist Australia and Gilbert suffered financial stress in playing for Queensland. The Barambah settlement wage, “calculated to provide for him in the native fashion”, was so vanishingly small, that it drove Gilbert into debt to buy the necessary cricket clothes and equipment. Half his playing allowance was deducted by his “protectors”. After three cases of leprosy in Barambah (now called Cherbourg), Gilbert's invitation to play in a “Country Week” carnival was withdrawn, a racist decision which would never have applied to white cricketers and which the Queensland Commissioner of Public Health called a “ridiculous” decision. With uncomplaining good humour, Gilbert publicly laughed off the open and disguised discrimination but he deeply felt the rejection and bigotry as he later reflected: “It's all right to be a hero on the field, but a black man can be lonely when he is not accepted after the game”. By 1936, an injury-affected Gilbert had played his last game for Queensland. After a haul of 87 wickets in 23 games over 10 years, there was now to be little good in his life. Gilbert remained poor (his bank account had five pounds in it when he died) and he was seriously afflicted by alcohol addiction, gambling and personal relationships. Back from first-class cricket's brief, and heavily qualified, reprieve, as an Aboriginal Australian Gilbert was plunged back into a world of social control and no prospects. In 1950, Gilbert entered Brisbane Mental Hospital suffering from personality disorders. Brutal electric shock treatment, and penicillin, failed to address his condition, Alzheimer's. The one-time devastating human catapult, symbol of pride for Aboriginal people and a living refutation to the myth of white superiority, died in 1978. Usually just a footnote in Australian cricket history (the Aboriginal bowler who dismissed Bradman for a duck), Gilbert's life is much more than that. It is a social history. Australia still has a long way to go to address its racist past and present, not only on the cricket field (where only nine Indigenous men have played first-class cricket and only one — Jason Gillespie — test cricket) but in economic, social and cultural life, too. Eddie Gilbert's story can only be a spur to changing that. Source: Green Left Weekly related links :
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Eddie Gilbert: The True Story of an Aboriginal Cricketing Legend
