Chuck Fleetwood-Smith, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetChuck Fleetwood-Smith
Australian cricketer
Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: Stawell, Victoria, Australia
About Chuck Fleetwood-Smith
- Leslie O'Brien "Chuck" Fleetwood-Smith (30 March 1908 – 16 March 1971) was a cricketer who played for Victoria and Australia.
- Known universally as "Chuck", he was the "wayward genius" of Australian cricket during the 1930s.
- A slow bowler who could spin the ball harder and further than his contemporaries, Fleetwood-Smith was regarded as a rare talent, but his cricket suffered from a lack of self-discipline that also characterised his personal life.
- In addition, his career coincided with those of Bill O'Reilly and Clarrie Grimmett, two spinners named in the ten inaugural members of the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame; as a result he played only ten Test matches but left a lasting impression with one delivery in particular.
- His dismissal of Wally Hammond in the fourth Test of the 1936–37 Ashes series has been compared to Shane Warne's ball of the century.
- He has the unwanted record of conceding the most runs by a bowler in a Test match innings. Holding little regard for the other disciplines of the game, batting and fielding, he attracted a lot of attention with his rare style of bowling: left-arm wrist spin.
- Sometimes called the "chinaman", or left-arm unorthodox, few bowlers of this type have appeared in senior cricket.
- Certainly, Fleetwood-Smith was the first chinaman bowler influence Australian cricket and play for the Test team.Fleetwood-Smith was ambidextrous and could bowl with either arm during his youth.
- His choice of an unconventional bowling style reflected his reputation as an eccentric.
- After his playing days finished, Fleetwood-Smith succumbed to alcoholism and spent many years homeless on the streets of Melbourne, sometimes sleeping rough a few hundred metres from the stadium where he played many of his best matches, the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
- His arrest in 1969 brought attention to his plight and a number of influential people rallied to his cause.
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