CAPTAIN CARR’S CENTURY
First Home Test Skipper
On 12 June 1926, Arthur Carr became the first Nottinghamshire player to captain England in a Test Match at Trent Bridge.
Surprisingly, 100 years later he remains the only Notts cricketer to achieve that honour – a record almost as bleak as the weather back in 1926.
Far from setting the tone for a long and successful career as England skipper, Carr had to settle for sitting in the Pavilion, watching the rain pour down.
In contrast to cricket in the 21st century, Carr probably consoled himself with some beer or a cocktail or two – Carr regularly ordered buckets of beer for his Nottinghamshire bowlers and introduced the ‘fast bowler’s lunch (Nottingham sandwich) …a couple of pints of beer, a fag and a cheese sandwich!
One thing that his era had in common with the modern game was the vagaries of the weather. Over the three scheduled days (Tests were shorter then) just 50 minutes of play, 17.2 overs, were possible, all on the first day.
Arthur Carr – who had played five Tests on the 1922/23 tour of South Africa – presided over three further drawn games, at Lord’s, Headingley and Old Trafford before losing both the captaincy and his place in the side for the fifth Test at The Oval.
Percy Chapman took over as captain when the England selectors said Carr was left out through illness, though the man himself always claimed he had been dropped, even though England were undefeated in his brief reign.
The capricious cricket gods saw to it that England won that Oval Test by 289 runs. Carr’s team-mate and protégé Harold Larwood took six wickets (three in each innings) as did Wilfred Rhodes, building on a 172-run first wicket stand by Jack Hobbs and Herbert Sutcliffe.
Arthur Carr returned to the England team, and the captaincy, for two home Tests (but not at Trent Bridge) against South Africa in 1929. At Old Trafford, he led the team to a victory by an innings and 32 runs; at The Oval the match was drawn.
Carr played 11 Tests, six as skipper, with a highest score of 63, his only half-century, at 19.75. He did not bowl in any of his Tests.
Larwood made his Test debut under his county captain in the second Test of 1926 – so his centenary is a couple of weeks away – was not selected for the next two and returned for the win at The Oval.
Before Arthur Carr – and before Trent Bridge was a test venue – both Alfred Shaw and Arthur Shrewsbury captained England in Tests; Arthur Jones took over as skipper for the 4th and 5th Tests of the 1907/08 tour of Australia but there have not been any Nottinghamshire England Test captains in the past 100 years.
Kevin Pietersen did have a short – and controversial – spell as England skipper but all his Tests as captain were played overseas, and several years after his time with Notts.
Stuart Broad, James Taylor and Graeme Swann each captained England white-ball teams, but not in Tests, whilst with Nottinghamshire.
With The Blaze now firmly established as part of the Trent Bridge family, Nat Sciver-Brunt joins the list of Nottinghamshire England captains, though she has yet to skipper the side in a Test Match.
Nottinghamshire’s overseas stars have captained visiting sides at Trent Bridge, though not when they were also Notts players.
Garry Sobers captained the West Indies Test side in 1966, two years prior to joining Notts; Stephen Fleming captained New Zealand in 2004, one year prior joining to Notts; and Daren Sammy captained the West Indies in 2012, three years before his T20 stint with The Outlaws.
Two players with fairly short Trent Bridge careers returned as international captains later on; Daniel Vettori captained New Zealand in 2008, five years after playing for Notts, and Kraigg Brathwaite’s captaincy of the West Indies came in 2024, six years after playing for Notts.
When the Club’s Honours boards go back up after the Pavilion renovations, it would be good to see another Nottinghamshire England Test captain on those boards for a home Test – and it will be interesting to see who might take Arthur Carr’s record away.
June 2026