Ray McNamee - 1895-1949

Randwick Petersham Cricket Club | December 28, 2023

“Ray McNamee has my admiration and respect for, of all the medium pace bowlers it has been my good fortune to play with or against, I regard Ray as the best”. These are the words of the Randwick champion batsman and 1st Grade captain Alec Marks following McNamee’s retirement at the conclusion of the 1936-37 season when aged 41.

Ray McNamee was one of Randwick’s greatest bowlers. He headed the bowling honours in 10 of his 14 seasons in 1st Grade producing some magnificent performances. He was also a successful bowler at first-class level taking five wickets in an innings five times for NSW.

Born in Orange on 26 August 1895, Raymond Leonard Alphonsus McNamee joined Randwick in 1921-22 from Waverley, the same year the club started in the 1st Grade competition. Described as a medium pace right-arm off-spinner who opened the bowling, he made his 1st Grade debut in 1922-23 after taking 31 wickets in 2nd Grade celebrating with 5-33 against Sydney among his 11 wickets in the top grade for the summer. However, it wasn’t until two years later in 1924-25 he became a regular 1st grader. He took 26 wickets including match figures of 7-46 (5-26 and 2-20) against St George. The NSW selectors however, recognised his talent much more quickly than the Randwick selectors and within two seasons he was in the NSW Sheffield Shield team making his debut in the same match as the brilliant but ill-fated Archie Jackson.

In just his fourth game for NSW, McNamee took 0-124 at the MCG in 1926-27 when Victoria rattled up a world record 1,107 runs to defeat NSW by an innings and 656 runs. The Victorian captain and Australian Test batsman Bill Ponsford made 352. In the return match in Sydney a month later, in an astonishing performance, McNamee destroyed the Victorian line-up (which did not include Ponsford) taking 7-21 off 8.4 overs (including 5-0 in 16 balls) to have them out for just 35! With 3-49 in the second innings, he took 10-70 in the match to finish the season NSW’s leading wicket taker with 27.

The following season McNamee continued his good form taking 5-53 in NSW’s win against South Australia in Adelaide. This turned out to be an historic occasion as it was the match in which Don Bradman made his first-class debut, scoring 118. McNamee was again the thorn in the Victorian team’s side that season, taking 7-77 to ensure a victory for NSW at the MCG. In that match, Ponsford and Woodfull had put on 227 for the opening partnership before McNamee caught and bowled Woodfull for 99 to start a Victorian batting collapse. He also had Ponsford caught by Don Bradman for 202 before bowling Hunter Hendry for a duck.

McNamee was again the leading wicket taker for NSW in 1927-28 with 19 at 33.94 and won selection in the Australian team to tour New Zealand captained by Ian and Greg Chappell’s grandfather, Vic Richardson. When he retired from first-class cricket the following season, he did so with a record of 72 wickets at an average of 30.27. Michael Whitney, who played between 1980 and 1994, was the only other Randwick bowler to play first-class cricket. He took 412 wickets and played Test cricket.

Ray continued his cricket with Randwick creating a club record of 58 1st Grade wickets in a season in 1930-31 which included some amazing performances. Against Manly he recorded his best innings performance with 7-59 but within a few weeks had topped that by taking 7-18 to have Northern District out for just 48. With 4-43 in the second innings Ray finished with match figures of 11-61.

The record Ray set in 1930-31 for most 1st Grade wickets in a season lasted just 12 months as he emulated the feat the following season with 62. Again, Northern District were dealt a great deal of pain by the lanky medium paced off-spinner. He knocked them over for 75 in the second innings with a 5-28 performance after taking 5-47 in the first.

But the records kept tumbling. In 1932-33 he again demolished Manly, this time for just 39 with a new best-performance of 7-14. He soon put paid to those figures with 8-85 against Gordon a few weeks later. Gordon again bore the brunt of yet another personal record when McNamee took 8-46 against them two years later. On that occasion he bowled throughout the innings and dismissed the first seven batsmen. And while he managed another “eight for” in 1935-36 with 8-63 against Western Suburbs when all eight batsmen were caught, his Gordon figures remained his career-best.

In 1934-35 Ray secured his first hat-trick during a performance of 6-40 against Balmain. He knocked over three batsmen with successive balls in the first over after tea, bowling each one. A few months later he recorded his best 1st Grade figures when he took 8-46 against Gordon off 18 overs. He bowled throughout the innings except for one over when he changed ends. At one stage he had 7-39 with the score 7-103 at tea. His figures in that innings, however, were not his career best. That occurred in 2nd Grade in 1923-24 when he took 9-49 to bowl out Balmain for 99 in the second innings of a match after he had taken 4-96 in the first.

While 1935-36 brought another 48 wickets with 46 more in 1936-37, Ray McNamee decided to “pull up stumps” and retire. But even at 41 years of age he showed he still had plenty of spark left with a 6-46 performance off 17 overs on 20 March 1937 just a few days before he departed Coogee Oval for the last time.

In 16 seasons with Randwick, Ray McNamee played 14 of them in 1st Grade taking 543 wickets and topping the bowling aggregate for the club 10 times. He took five wickets in an innings an amazing 42 times while he had match figures of more than 10 wickets on three occasions. Overall, McNamee took 661 career wickets, the sixth highest total for Randwick. Interestingly, he scored only 528 career runs—many less than the number of wickets he took. And in an ironic twist, Randwick took out its second 1st Grade premiership the season after Ray retired emphasising the marvellous legacy he left with the club.

One of the great attributes of Ray McNamee was his stamina. He bowled most overs in the team in the majority of seasons he played. In 1931-32 when he took a record 62 wickets, he bowled an amazing 324 overs with 46 maidens. In his last eight seasons the minimum number of overs he bowled was 211 which was in his final season. All up in 1st Grade he sent down 2,952.4 overs in 14 seasons at an average of 211 overs each summer. With his lower grade seasons his career work load was 3,299.7 overs.

Ray McNamee, the Randwick cricket champion, died on 18 September 1949 at Little Bay aged just 54. 

Ray McNamee in the SCG2 nets 1928-29