Jack Fingleton - Test Debut

Test Debut

In the opening match of the 1931–32 season, which was against Queensland, New South Wales were in trouble. Gilbert famously knocked the bat out of Donald Bradman's hand, before removing him for a duck. Gilbert cut down the New South Wales top order with a spell of 3/12 and forced Alan Kippax to retire hurt after hitting him in the upper body. Fingleton was going to be twelfth man before Archie Jackson—who was to die of tuberculosis just over a year later—collapsed just before the start of the match. Undeterred, Stan McCabe came in and counterattacked; Fingleton assisted him with a stubborn 93 and featured in a 195-run fourth wicket partnership. New South Wales reached 432 and won by an innings.

Fingleton then scored his maiden first-class century of 117 in less than four hours in the following match, against the touring South Africa, helping his team to 3/430 in their runchase. The hosts were 18 runs short of victory when time ran out. Although Fingleton made only five in New South Wales' second match against the South Africans, Fingleton was selected for the Test series against the same team. This came after only ten matches for his state. Starting with the Second Test, he was twelfth man for three consecutive Tests, and as a result, did not play any cricket for six weeks before he added a pair of 40s in a win over arch-rivals Victoria.

Fingleton made his debut in the Fifth and final Test in similar circumstances to his break at the start of the season; Bill Ponsford fell ill and Bradman twisted an ankle. As Bradman later took a hard-running catch as a substitute fielder on the same day, some suspected that he had feigned injury to avoid playing on a rain-affected wicket hostile to batting—he had appeared uncomfortable against aggressive bowling in the previous Test. In a low-scoring match, Fingleton's first action on the field was to let a ball go between his legs as South Africa batted first. Opening with captain Bill Woodfull in the absence of Ponsford, Fingleton saw his skipper removed from the first ball of the innings. He was allowed to ease into his first innings when the first ball he faced, from Neville Quinn, was a deliberate full toss to give him an opportunity to score his initial runs easily. The pair became friends from this point onwards. Fingleton was second top-scorer with 40 as Australia made 153 recorded an innings victory. The match lasted less than one day's playing time as the hosts fell for only 36 and 45. The cricketer-journalist Richard Whitington later wrote that "for courage and skill... was worth quadruple that number". The Sydney Mail predicted that Fingleton's display on the rain-affected wicket, the likes of which were common, proved that he would "someday be a great success" there. Fingleton ended the season with 386 runs at 42.88 with one century and a fifty in six matches.