By Ross McMullin
Sam Konstas has followed his arresting first Test by breaking a record in his second.
He has become the youngest player to represent Australia in a Test at the SCG.
The cricketer Konstas superseded had retained this record for 117 years.
Sam Konstas will be Australia’s youngest cricketer to play in a Test at the SCG — the cricketer who remained the youngest for 117 years until this week was Gerry Hazlitt (pictured).Credit: MCC library
Gervys Rignold Hazlitt is practically unknown today, but his story is unique.
Not only was he remarkably young when he debuted for Australia 100 days after turning 19; he did so with a Greek connection that was not derived, like Konstas, from his heritage – Hazlitt was studying honours Greek (and Latin) at university.
Sam Konstas, Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins in at the SCG on Wednesday.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer
Moreover, he was prominent in the gripping climax of his first match, one of the most absorbing in
the long history of Australian Test cricket.
Gerry Hazlitt was born in Sydney but grew up in Melbourne.
A bowler of rare potential, he represented Victoria at just 17 while still attending school at
Haileybury College.
Dark-haired and slim with long arms, he was a skilful medium-pacer with an unusual jerky delivery that enabled him to make the ball deviate both in the air and off the pitch. And he was also no slouch with the bat, either.
Hazlitt began first-year arts at Melbourne University in 1907 as a resident at Ormond College. Playing for Ormond against its arch rival Trinity in March, he took nine wickets in an innings (15 in the match), and his selection for the first Test against England in December that year alongside such legends as Victor Trumper, Clem Hill and M.A. Noble thrilled the college community: ‘Seeing an Ormond man included in the best cricket team in the world … marks a red letter day in the history of the College’, confirmed the Students’ Club secretary.
It proved a tight contest. Australia, batting last following three similar innings (273, 300 and 300 again), needed 274 to win.
Their prospects seemed slim when 19-year-old Hazlitt went in second-last to join the renowned paceman Albert “Tibby” Cotter with 55 still needed.
Hazlitt was 19 and 100 days old when he played at the SCG. He was the youngest player to do it before Konstas, who will play his first Test at the SCG at 19 and 93 days old.Credit: MCC library
Both knew it was up to them – Australia’s No.11 was a notoriously inept tailender.
Hazlitt (like Konstas at the MCG) showed no sign of nerves, while Cotter, an instinctive hitter, managed to restrain himself in the crisis – just.
They were facing some of England’s finest-ever bowlers, but scoring began to flow.
Risky runs were stolen, and a catch was almost taken, but the margin gradually narrowed. Hazlitt was “a revelation”, an onlooker felt.
Also watching intently was Australia’s premier cricket analyst of the era, Jack Davis of The Referee. Tension was “at fever heat” with spectators “shaking like leaves before the wind”, he observed. With the target reduced to nine, a perilous single nearly caused a runout but produced two overthrows instead.
The crowd was now “roaring” with “indescribable excitement”, Davis noted. Some were jumping on their seats.
Hazlitt remained outwardly unfazed. With three runs required, he unfurled an assured pull shot to the square-leg boundary, unleashing such rapturous euphoria that “the youngster was almost carried off his feet by the rush of enthusiasts”, The Australasian reported.
The unlikely victory made him a household name.
During the Test the university announced its academic results: Hazlitt was awarded first-class honours in English and second-class honours in Latin.
He proceeded to graduate with honours, and returned to Haileybury as a teacher.
Konstas and Cummins celebrate Australia’s victory on Monday.Credit: Getty Images
Later he moved to Sydney and joined the staff at King’s School, Parramatta, where he became a popular housemaster.
Having been controversially omitted from the Australian team that toured England in 1909 – several leading players lamented his absence – Hazlitt returned to the Test side successfully at the SCG in February 1912, and was selected to tour England later that year.
For the Australians this was not a successful venture overall, but Hazlitt was an exception.
He exceeded 100 wickets during the tour, and routed England with 7-25 in the second innings of a Test at the Oval, including five wickets in only 17 deliveries.
He was only 23, yet he hardly played again.
Health problems sabotaged his cricket, preventing him from fulfilling his undoubted potential.
Victor Trumper
His heart was far from robust, and an eye problem that hampered his batting necessitated an operation.
Significantly, though, he made an exception for a notable fixture in the 1912–13 domestic season, making himself available for the Victor Trumper testimonial match, when he played in the team led by Trumper.
This proved to be Hazlitt’s last game at first-class level. He died of heart failure in Parramatta, aged only 27, in 1915 – that sombre year when the deaths of Trumper and England’s titan W.G. Grace reinforced the dispiriting sentiment that a new war-scarred epoch had supplanted cricket’s golden age.
It was “certain”, Jack Davis concluded, that if only Hazlitt had been blessed with good health and stamina “he would have joined the greatest of the great ones who have bowled for Australia in Test matches, for he possessed all the necessary ability, grit, perseverance and judgment”.
Remarkably, despite being far from well during the 1912 tour, he still managed to take five wickets with his last 17 balls in Test cricket.
An obituarist recalled Hazlitt’s Test debut (when he was only slightly older than Konstas) and declared that no one who heard the roar that greeted his match-winning boundary at the SCG would ever forget it.
Ross McMullin is an award-winning historian, biographer and storyteller. His most recent book, Life So Full of Promise: Further Biographies of Australia’s Lost Generation, was awarded the 2024 Age Book of the Year Award for non-fiction.
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