Alick Mackenzie was an Australian cricketer. He played 48 first-class matches for New South Wales between seasons 1888/89 and 1906/07. In the Sydney grade competition he is most well known for having played for the Paddington and Waverley clubs.
Alick's first season of competitive club cricket was the 1885/86 season in which he played for the Winchester club. Despite it being his first season of cricket, he won the award for the highest batting average in the team. The following season, 1886/87 he played for the Mansfield club. In his last season of junior cricket, 1887/88, he played for the Verona cricket club, during which he made a top score of 206 not out.
Senior club cricket
Alick Mackenzie joined the newly formed Sydney Cricket Club for the 1888/89 season. He would play with the club for five seasons before the introduction of the electorate club system in 1893.
When the Sydney Grade Cricket competition was formed in 1893 he played for the Paddington club due to the fact he resided in that suburb. During his time at Paddington he was a teammate of Australian Test stars Victor Trumper and Monty Noble. Two of Alick's younger brothers also played alongside him for Paddington in this period. Alick won two premierships with Paddington in seasons 1894/95 and 1897/98. After the 1899/00 season Alick moved to the Waverley club as he was now living within their residential boundaries. He would play for the Waverely club until his retirement at the conclusion of the 1909/10 season. Alick captained Waverley to a premiership in season 1902/03. During his grade cricket career Alick was twice the leading run scorer for the season. He achieved this feat first during the 1895/96 season while playing for Paddington when he scored 565 run at an average of 51.36. The second occasion was during his time with Waverley in the 1902/03 season when he scored 626 runs at 62.6. He also achieved the highest batting average that season.
First-class cricket
Alick was first selected to play for New South Wales as an 18 year old in December 1888 when he was selected to play for NSW against an Australian XI. He performed well on debut, his score of 34 being amongst the best of the NSW batsman and made against Australia's best bowlers of the day. Alick would play for NSW on a regular basis from that point until season 1902/03. He played only one more game for NSW after that season, which came in season 1906/07 when he appeared for NSW against Western Australia in Perth. The highlight of Alick’s first class career came during the 1897/98 season when he scored his only first class century playing for New South Wales in a match against the touring England side. Alick retired at the conclusion of the 1909/10 season. As a reward for his services to the game he was named as manager of the Australian side that toured New Zealand from February to April 1910.
H.V. Hordern and the Googly
Alick Mackenzie was a contemporary of H. V. Hordern who is well known as the first Australian cricketer to develop the ability to bowl the googly delivery. The googly is a delivery bowled by a leg spin bowler in a normal manner, but which turns in the opposite direction to a normal leg-break. The delivery was originally developed by English cricketer Bernard Bosanquet in the early 1900s while he was a student at Oxford University and he used it to great effect against Australia's batsman on England's tour of Australia in 1903/04. After witnessing Bosanquet bowl the googly, Hordern committed to teaching himself how to bowl it. Prior to the commencement of the 1905/06 season Hordern asked Alick to join him at the Sydney Cricket Ground so that he could practice bowling the new delivery. The first two deliveries that he bowled were full tosses and promptly hit to the boundary by Mackenzie. The third landed on the pitch, spun, beat the bat and clean bowled the batsman. It was after this occurrence that Hordern begun using the googly in first-class matches.
Personal life
On 19 May 1900 Alick married Jessie Maud Phelps. They had four children. After leaving school, Alick entered employment as a clerk with the New South Wales Department of Audit. He would remain with the department until his retirement in the 1930s.
Life after cricket
After his cricket career finished in 1910, Alick took up the sport of competitive lawn bowls.
