Richard Whitington

Richard Whitington

Personal information
Full name	Richard Smallpeice Whitington
Born	30 June 1912 Unley Park, South Australia, Australia
Died	13 March 1984 (aged 71) Sydney, Australia
Height	6 ft 1 in (1.85 m)
Batting style	Right-hand batsman
Role	Batsman
Domestic team information
Years	Team
1932/33 – 1939/40	South Australia
First-class debut	4 November 1932 South Australia v England (MCC)
Last First-class	21 January 1946 Australian Services XI v Queensland
Career statistics
Competition First-class Matches 54 Runs scored 2782 Batting average 32.34 100s/50s 4/14 Top score 155 Balls bowled 128 Wickets 1 Bowling average 91.00 5 wickets in innings 0 10 wickets in match 0 Best bowling 1/4 Catches/stumpings 32/–
Source: CricketArchive, 3 June 2009

Richard Smallpeice "Dick" Whitington (30 June 1912 – 13 March 1984) was an Australian first-class cricketer who played for South Australia and after serving in World War II, represented the Australian Services cricket team, which played in the Victory Tests.

He was born in Unley Park, South Australia, the younger son of businessman Guy Whitington (c. 1880 – 5 February 1954)^[1] and a member of the distinguished Whitington family of South Australia. He married Alison Margaret "Peggy" Dale on 19 December 1939; they divorced in 1942. He served in the Middle East with the Second AIF.

He began his state cricketing career at 19 under captain Victor Richardson as an opening batsman for South Australia.

Whitington was also a prominent journalist and writer, and he balanced this with his playing career until his retirement. He was known for his collaborations with Services XI team-mate Keith Miller; the pair wrote many books together, with Whitington acting as the ghost-writer. Whitington, usually writing as 'R.S. Whitington', was famous for his books and had a strong relationship with Miller, the 1948 Invincible. Whitington wrote for the Sydney Sun. He was sports editor and roving Test reporter for Consolidated Press, owned and managed by the Packer family. He wrote some thirty or so books on cricket, many of them prefaced by Sir Robert Menzies, and in later years, the official biography of Sir Frank Packer, and a history of Australian cricket.

Other books Whitington collaborated with Miller are Cricket Caravan, Catch, Fours Galore, Straight Hit, Bumper, Gods or Flannelled Fools, Cricket Typhoon, The Golden Nugget and The Keith Miller Companion. He released books by himself, including Simpson's Safari, The Quiet Australian: The Lindsay Hassett Story, John Reid's Kiwis and Bradman, Benaud and Goddard's Cinderellas. Whitington and John Waite combined to release Perchance to Bowl. He and Lindsay Hassett (his former captain of the Australian Services XI) collaborated on a book about Hassett's captaincy of the 1945 Australian side that toured England, India and then Ceylon, before returning to play in each state of Australia.

References

1. "Death of Mr. Guy Whitington". The Advertiser (Adelaide, SA : 1931 - 1954). Adelaide, SA: National Library of Australia. 9 February 1954. p. 3. Retrieved 4 November 2015.