I was 11 when I first heard of J ack Kerr; he was in Auckland, a newcomer to the Canterbury Team and he scored two half centuries. I saw him at Lancaster Park in Canterbury’s last game, against Otago. He scored 70. I have admired him as a cricketer, an administrator, a Manager of the New Zealand Team and a
friend. There is not much difference statistically between 11 and 20, but from the first sight ofKerr batting, he became my hero.
Kerr’s father lived in the Chatham Islands until he was 14. It was here that he read about cricket in the Boy’s Own Annual, and from then on was an avid cricket follower. Being a farmer, he settled in Marton when Jack was about four years of age. At the beginning of 1924, Jack became a boarder in the Wanganui Technical School.
Jack came from a cricket-mad family. It was recorded his sister Jean and ten other girls challenged the Marton team when it had a bye. Sure the men had to bat left-handed, if they were normally right – but Jean went in first and scored 144 of the team’s total of 181 ; then, as a newspaper reported in a notable piece of understatement, “...she completed a good day’s cricket by dismissing the whole Marton eleven.” She even clean-bowled her Father ...
Kerr was at Wanganui Tech for five years and he was in the 1” XI for five years. That earned him a place, in his early teenage years, for Rangitikei and later Wanganui, where he scored centuries. But it was not, at that time, fashionable to pick someone from a country area for a provincial team and in spite of having Stewie Dempster as the Wanganui Coach, he decided to shift in 1929, to Christchurch. He studied accountancy at Canterbury College and joined the West Christchurch Club. Among his contemporaries was the famous leg break bowler, Bill Merritt.
Playing for Old Boys, Merritt found in Kerr a flagrant disregard for reputation; Jack thrashed him in scoring 129 not out!
The minds of those senior enough to have been present, turns to 1930/31 to one of the most exciting finishes the Ground has known. Canterbury was left 400 minutes to score 473. Fifty-one runs were made on the third day. It is easy to recall the fast bowling of Don Cleverley, and the fear he put into the mind of the youngsters among the spectators. But the morning had barely begun when Kerr hit 4 fours in an over – 2 superb square-cuts and 2 vehement hooks. No wonder he was the hero of the schoolboys. Oh yes, Canterbury won, with the Lancaster Park clock only a minute or two off six ...
There was in 1932/33 a magnificent 196 against Wellington. Kerr and Curly Page added 176 in 65 minutes; Kerr scored his last 94 in 48 minutes. This was followed, a year later, by 174 again with Wellington, but it was in 1935/36 that Kerr, by his own reckoning played his best innings. It was against the MCC at Lancaster Park, a team with several test players. Kerr opened the innings and scored 46 not out; two others reached double figures; and in the second innings he made 71 . None of the others reached 20. He was not picked for the first international, but he was in the last three, in which he scored two centuries.
Kerr was a truly splendid batsman – tall, playing beautiful strokes and always on the look out for runs. He scored, in 31 matches for Canterbury, 2228 runs at 38.4. He had two tours of England with New Zealand Teams, with not outstanding success.
In 1931 he had trouble with his eyes. In 1937 in spite of a lean patch he scored 500 runs in the final seven games. He made 1205 runs during the tour at 31.71 . After the war, he played Club cricket in Christchurch and he was j ust as attractive.
And what, in his retirement, has he meant to cricket, Canterbury and New Zealand?
He was on the New Zealand Management Committee from 1 93 7- 1948; Treasurer (1948-69); Chairman of the Board (1964-65); President (1969- 71) and National Selector. He was Manager of the first Team to South Africa (1953/54).
I can vividly recall being woken up on the Boxing Day by Kerr, ashen-faced, with the news that Bob Blair’s fiancee had been killed in the dreadful Tangiwai disaster. Every New Zealand cricketer – in fact every New Zealander – should know what happened at Ellis Park. Jack, in spite of Blair’s grievous loss, must have felt immense pride in the courage of the New Zealanders.
A splendid batsman, an astute administrator in the days when top athletes could earn a fortune in television advertisements, he was awarded, in the last Queen’s Birthday Honours, the New Zealand Order of Merit.
What took them so long?