Gil Langley
Encyclopedia
Gilbert Roche Andrews "Gil" Langley (14 September 1919 - 14 May 2001) was an Australian Test cricket
Test cricket
Test cricket is the longest form of the sport of cricket. Test matches are played between national representative teams with "Test status", as determined by the International Cricket Council , with four innings played between two teams of 11 players over a period of up to a maximum five days...

er, champion Australian rules football
Australian rules football
Australian rules football, officially known as Australian football, also called football, Aussie rules or footy is a sport played between two teams of 22 players on either...

er and member of parliament, serving as Speaker of the South Australian House of Assembly
South Australian House of Assembly
The House of Assembly, or lower house, is one of the two chambers of the Parliament of South Australia. The other is the Legislative Council. It sits in Parliament House in the state capital, Adelaide.- Overview :...

.

Born in North Adelaide
North Adelaide
North Adelaide is a predominantly residential precinct of the City of Adelaide in South Australia, situated north of the River Torrens and within the Adelaide Park Lands.-History:...

, South Australia
South Australia
South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country. It covers some of the most arid parts of the continent; with a total land area of , it is the fourth largest of Australia's six states and two territories.South Australia shares borders with all of the mainland...

, Langley attended public schools and gained an apprenticeship as an electrician. He also gained a reputation as an all round sportsman, starring in cricket and Australian rules football as a junior, being coached in both by former Test cricketer and leading footballer Vic Richardson
Vic Richardson
Victor York Richardson OBE was a leading Australian sportsman of the 1920s and 1930s, captaining the Australian cricket team and the South Australian Australian rules football team, representing Australia in baseball and South Australia in golf, winning the South Australian state tennis title and...

.

Australian Rules footballer

Langley made his debut as a rover for South Australian National Football League
South Australian National Football League
The South Australian National Football League is an Australian rules football league based in the Australian state of South Australia. It is also the governing body for the sport of Australian rules football in South Australia....

 club Sturt
Sturt Football Club
Sturt Football Club is an Australian rules football club in the South Australian National Football League. The club is best known for its period of dominance from 1966–76 under legendary coach Jack Oatey, during which it revolutionised the style of play by emphasising teamwork and accurate ball...

 in 1939, playing 163 games and kicking 341 goals, captaining the club in 1945 and 1947 and winning Sturt's Best and Fairest award in 1945 and 1946. He also played 11 games for South Australia (kicking 19 goals), including a stint as captain and, while stationed in Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...

 in the munitions department during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, Langley played four games for Essendon Football Club
Essendon Football Club
The Essendon Football Club, nicknamed The Bombers, is an Australian rules football club which plays in the Australian Football League...

 in the Victorian Football League
Australian Football League
The Australian Football League is both the governing body and the major professional competition in the sport of Australian rules football...

, including an appearance in the 1943 grand final. He retired from football at the end of the 1950 season.

Cricketer

Langley made his first-class cricket debut as a specialist batsman for South Australia on 14 December 1945 against New South Wales and first kept wicket in first class cricket in December 1947. He immediately made an impression for his tidy work behind the stumps and he was chosen for Australia's 1949-50 tour to South Africa
South African cricket team
The South African national cricket team represent South Africa in international cricket. They are administrated by Cricket South Africa.South Africa is a full member of the International Cricket Council, also known as ICC, with Test and One Day International, or ODI, status...

, although he did not play a Test. Langley eventually made his Test debut at the Gabba
Brisbane Cricket Ground
The Brisbane Cricket Ground, commonly known as The Gabba, is a major sports stadium in Brisbane, the capital of Queensland. It is named after the suburb of Woolloongabba, in which it is located....

 during the 1951/52 series against the West Indies
West Indian cricket team
The West Indian cricket team, also known colloquially as the West Indies or the Windies, is a multi-national cricket team representing a sporting confederation of 15 mainly English-speaking Caribbean countries, British dependencies and non-British dependencies.From the mid 1970s to the early 1990s,...

 in place of the injured Don Tallon
Don Tallon
Donald "Don" Tallon was an Australian cricketer who played 21 Test matches as a wicket-keeper between 1946 and 1953...

. He took three catches and four stumpings and, following Tallon's retirement in 1953, became the first choice wicket keeper for Australia until his retirement in 1956.

Langley's skills behind the wicket were recognised by Wisden Cricketers' Almanack
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom...

, who proclaimed him "the safest wicketkeeper in the game" and named him one of its five cricketers of the year in 1957. He had toured England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 in 1956 and was one of the few highlights in an outclassed Australian side. In the Lord's
Lord's Cricket Ground
Lord's Cricket Ground is a cricket venue in St John's Wood, London. Named after its founder, Thomas Lord, it is owned by Marylebone Cricket Club and is the home of Middlesex County Cricket Club, the England and Wales Cricket Board , the European Cricket Council and, until August 2005, the...

 Test he completed nine dismissals in Australia's only win of the series. This would stand as the Test record for dismissals by a wicket keeper in a match until it was broken by Bob Taylor
Bob Taylor (cricketer)
Robert William Taylor , known as Bob Taylor, is a former English cricketer who played as wicket-keeper for Derbyshire between 1961 and 1984 and for England between 1971 and 1984. He made 57 Test, and 639 first class cricket appearances in total, taking 1,473 catches. The 2,069 victims across his...

 in 1980 and stood as an Australian record until 2000. He also made headlines in England when he split his trousers while meeting with the Queen
Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom
Elizabeth II is the constitutional monarch of 16 sovereign states known as the Commonwealth realms: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize,...

, forcing his teammates Keith Miller
Keith Miller
Keith Ross Miller MBE was an Australian Test cricketer and a Royal Australian Air Force pilot during World War II. Miller is widely regarded as Australia's greatest ever all-rounder. Because of his ability, irreverent manner and good looks he was a crowd favourite...

 and Ian Johnson
Ian Johnson (cricketer)
Ian William Geddes Johnson CBE was an Australian cricketer who played 45 Test matches as a slow off-break bowler between 1946 and 1956. Johnson captured 109 Test wickets at an average of 29.19 runs per wicket and as a lower order batsman made 1,000 runs at an average of...

 to hurriedly repair his trousers with safety pins.

Langley played his last Test match against India at Eden Gardens
Eden Gardens
Eden Gardens is a cricket ground in Kolkata , India. It is the home of the Bengal cricket team and the Indian Premier League's Kolkata Knight Riders, as well as being a Test and One Day International ground. It is the largest cricket stadium in India by seating capacity...

, Kolkata
Kolkata
Kolkata , formerly known as Calcutta, is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. Located on the east bank of the Hooghly River, it was the commercial capital of East India...

 in November 1956 and retired from first class cricket a month later after scoring a century for South Australia against New South Wales at the Adelaide Oval
Adelaide Oval
The Adelaide Oval is a sports ground in Adelaide, South Australia, located in the parklands between the Central Business District and North Adelaide...

.

Rare double

Langley achieved a rare double, equalled only by Victor Richardson, of captaining Sturt in both cricket and football.

Journalist and politician

Following his retirement from cricket, Langley worked as a sports journalist and became involved in political issues, entering the South Australian House of Assembly as an Australian Labor Party
Australian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...

 representative for the Electoral district of Unley
Electoral district of Unley
Unley is an electoral district of the House of Assembly in the Australian state of South Australia. Named after the suburb of the same name, it is a 12.2 km² urban electorate in Adelaide's inner southern suburbs, taking in the suburbs of Eastwood, Frewville, Fullarton, Glenunga, Highgate, Hyde...

 at the 1962 election. He increased his popularity during constituent visits by performing electrical related tasks like fixing toasters. Following the 1965 election, Langley became part of the first Labor government in South Australia for 32 years and would later serve as Speaker of the House of Assembly from 1977 to 1979 before his retirement from politics in 1982. Considered "one of the great and delightful eccentrics" of the South Australian parliament, Langley was an old style Labor politician who had become disillusioned with the direction his party had taken under Don Dunstan
Don Dunstan
Donald Allan "Don" Dunstan, AC, QC was a South Australian politician. He entered politics as the Member for Norwood in 1953, became state Labor leader in 1967, and was Premier of South Australia between June 1967 and April 1968, and again between June 1970 and February 1979.The son of a business...

 on social issues like liberalising homosexuality
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...

 laws.

In the Australia Day Honours of 1984, Langley was made a member in the general division of the Order of Australia
Order of Australia
The Order of Australia is an order of chivalry established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, "for the purpose of according recognition to Australian citizens and other persons for achievement or for meritorious service"...

, in 2001 he was named an Inaugural Sturt Football Club Hall of Fame inductee and in recognition of his services to cricket, the Gil Langley Function Room at Adelaide Oval
Adelaide Oval
The Adelaide Oval is a sports ground in Adelaide, South Australia, located in the parklands between the Central Business District and North Adelaide...

 was named in his honour.

He spent much of his retirement playing lawn bowls and died after a long fight with Alzheimer's disease, survived by two sons, two daughters and nine grandchildren.

Langley's nephew, Jeff Langley, played cricket for South Australia and Queensland between 1969–70 and 1979-80.

External links

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