Prodigy. Record breaker. Enigma.

Jack Crawford, described as the greatest ever schoolboy cricketer, blazed into the Surrey team at the age of seventeen and broke a host of records: the youngest Surrey centurion and double centurion, the youngest player to achieve the double of 100 wickets and 1,000 runs in a season. He became the youngest cricketer to play for England and a Wisden Cricketer of the Year.

Yet, not long after his twenty-first birthday, he played the last of his twelve Test matches. He fell out with the Surrey committee, then with the South Australian Cricket Association and Otago Cricket Association after moving to play in the Southern Hemisphere. What went wrong?

Crawford’s career raises many questions which have only been partially answered. Why did he stand up to the Surrey committee? What happened in Australia and New Zealand? Did he try to dodge the Great War? Was he a bigamist? Now, thanks to Keith and Jennifer Booth’s meticulous research, the truth is fully known.

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