Arthur Edward Robert Gilligan was an English first-class cricketer. He captained the England cricket team nine times in 1924 and 1925, winning four Test matches, losing four and drawing one. A fast bowler and hard-hitting lower order batsman, Gilligan completed the double in 1923 and was one of Wisden’s Cricketers of the Year for 1924. He retired from cricket in 1929, but continued to play cricket as a writer and commentator until his death in 1976 at the age of 81.
About Arthur Gilligan in brief
Arthur Edward Robert Gilligan was an English first-class cricketer. He captained the England cricket team nine times in 1924 and 1925, winning four Test matches, losing four and drawing one. A fast bowler and hard-hitting lower order batsman, Gilligan completed the double in 1923 and was one of Wisden’s Cricketers of the Year for 1924. Gilligan played cricket for Dulwich College before the First World War, then for Cambridge, twice winning his blue. He briefly played county cricket for Surrey but moved to Sussex in 1920. In following years, he played less frequently; he resigned as Sussex captain in 1929 and retired three years later. He subsequently became a writer, journalist and cricket commentator while maintaining his connections with Sussex. He died in 1976, aged 81, at his home in Camberwell, London. He was the second of four children born to Willie Austin Gilligan and Alice Eliza Kimpton; his brothers Frank and Harold also played high-level cricket. He followed Sussex County Cricket Club as a child, and later played club cricket there. He fought in the Lancashire Fusiliers from 1915 to 1915. He returned to Pembroke College, Cambridge, after the war and resumed his cricket career and played for the 11th Battalion of the Pembrook Fusilier Regiment in 1915. In 1914, he took ten wickets in total and scored one fifty in the two matches. He made a bigger impression when, batting at number 11 in the order, he scored 101 and shared a last eleven-wicket partnership of 177 minutes with John Naumann.
He played for Surrey during the school holidays of 1913 and 1914; his father was a member of that county’s committee, and Gilligan qualified to play through his London birth. As MCC captain of a team which toured India in 1926–27, he encouraged Indians to take responsibility for their own cricket board instead of allowing white Englishmen to run Indian cricket, and lobbied the MCC to bestow Test match status on the Indian team. As a captain, he was well-liked by players and commentators, although many did not believe he was an effective tactician. He retired from cricket in 1929, but continued to play cricket as a writer and commentator until his death in 1976 at the age of 81. He is buried in Pembury, Sussex, where he played for Sussex until he retired in 1929. He also had a son, David, who was a footballer and also played for Cambridge University in the Second World War. He won the ODI World Cup for England against Australia in 1921. He later became a cricket commentator for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio 5 Live. In his spare time, he wrote a book about cricket and cricket in the 1930s, about the D’Oliveira affair in 1968 and about cricket’s role in World War II. He had a daughter and a son-in-law, both of whom died in the 1980s.
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