St George DCC First Grade Player No.78 - Ray Little
St George Cricket Club | May 16, 2025
Raymond Cecil James Little was born in Uralla (between Armidale and Tamworth) on the 7th of October 1914.
It is stated that he moved from Newcastle to St George where he made his first debut in the season of 1933/34. No doubt he would have gained the attention of the cricketing folk in Sydney when in February of 1932 he scored a century against a touring Marylebone Cricket Club (The MCC) team featuring many English greats such as Jack Hobbs, The Nawab of Pataudi, Bill Voce, Maurice Leyland and was captained by Bob Wyatt. The match was played at No.1 Sports Ground, Newcastle but was not a 1st class fixture. Little was representing Northern NSW where he scored 40 in the first innings and followed it up with 117 in the 2nd innings. He would have been just 17 years old at the time.
In his time at St George he batted in 70 innings with 9 not outs and 2001 first grade runs at 32.8 with a top score of 145. He scored 4 centuries all up and also took 7 first grade wickets at 21.86 as well as claiming 29 catches. In this period at St George he also made his debut for NSW in 1935. He played 8 first class games all up scoring 360 runs at 24 with a top score of 78. He scored 3 half centuries and took 11 catches. He also managed to snare himself 1 first class wicket. His final game for NSW started on the 25th of January 1936 at the SCG against Victoria where he scored 4 & 36.
He moved to Western Suburbs and made his first grade debut for them on the 29th of September 1938 against Randwick.
Not much is known at this stage about Ray Little’s life after he finished playing cricket other than he became a member of the Australian Board of Control for International Cricket alongside Don Bradman. He famously served the renamed Australian Cricket Board when it was challenged by Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket movement in 1977 where he opposed the banning of WSC players from playing Grade Cricket. He believed such actions would be too vindictive and alienate the public.
Little also sat alongside Mr. St George, Warren Saunders, in the ACB’s first national junior advisory sub-committee.
Ray Little passed away on the 28th of April 1995 in Burwood aged 80. Later in the clubs centenary season of 2010-11 he was named in the St George DCC Team of the Decade for the 1930’s alongside players such as Morris, Bradman and O’Reilly.
Do you know more about Ray Little – We would love to hear from you. Contact hamish.solomons@gmail.com
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