If someone's discussing cricket, and the surname Lee comes up, who must be the subject of discussion? Brett Lee definitely, or a small probability of his brother Shane Lee. But, this time it's not them. Here's a story about the other Lees and most importantly, the eldest of the lot Harry Lee, a cricketer who made his test debut 15 years after he was presumed dead.
Starting from the starting, Harry Lee was born way back in the 19th century (1890) to a greengrocer in London. He had two younger brothers, Frank and Jack Lee. Lee made his debut for Middlesex in 1911 and was a part of the team until 1934 including a period disturbed by the First World War. An all-rounder, Lee was a right-handed batsman and bowled both off-break and slow-medium pace bowling with his right arm. He scored 1,000 runs in a season on thirteen occasions. Part of the County Championship winning sides in 1920 and 1921, Lee aggregated 20,158 runs and took 401 wickets in first-class cricket.
Lee served in the British Army during 1914-15 as a Private in the London Regiment. He was posted to the 1/13th (County of London) Battalion on 25 February 1915 and joined them in France just over a week later. In one of the attacks during the period where a number of British casualties had occurred, Lee was shot in the leg fracturing his femur bone. Lee was then declared dead and a memorial service was held back in his native place following the announcement of his death. 3 days after Lee was shot and left lying, the Germans found him and transported him to a nearby hospital. Lee was selected to return to England and his journey began on 1 October 1915. Although Lee had amplified the severity of his injury, in England he discovered that one of his legs would be permanently shorter than the other, and he had suffered significant muscle death. He was told that he would neither be able to fight nor play cricket again. He was discharged in December 1915 and played cricket again in 1916 and even scored a century.
He was later invalidated from the army and soon moved to India. His journey to India was even more fascinating because he was originally supposed to board the Nyanza ship, sailing to Bombay, but was transferred to Nagoya which directly sailed to Calcutta (Lee's supposed destination). Nyanza was attacked and although it returned to the port 49 lives were lost. Lee was surely destined to live long. In India, Lee worked as a football and cricket coach for the Maharaja of Cooch Behar. He even played some first-class matches in the country that too with a disability. Post-World-War 1, county cricket resumed in England in 1919 and Lee moved back to England to play again for Middlesex. Lee performed exceptionally for years to come earning contention to play for the national side. He finally got a call during the English winter of 1930-31 in South Africa where he was actually coaching University teams, and a number of injuries to the first team meant that the English Captain had no option but to play Lee. His only Test appearance came in the fourth Test between England and South Africa. Lee opened the innings alongside Bob Wyatt and scored 18 and 1 in his two innings of the match, which finished a draw. During the match, the MCC were contacted by one of the schools he had been coaching at, which claimed that Lee had broken his contract by leaving without permission. Lee argued vehemently against these claims, citing the fact that the sportsmaster at the school had told Jack White that he had permission to leave, but the MCC were unmoved and refused to issue Lee his England cap and blazer until he had apologized. Lee felt he had no need to apologize, and never received either cap or blazer, though small compensation came in the form of an England touring tie, which Jack Hobbs gave to him. Lee was perhaps the only test cricketer who never received his test cap, that too 15 years after he was announced dead.
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| (L to R) Harry, Jack, and Frank |
In his later career, Lee was still playing for Middlesex in the county and his two brothers, Frank and Jack, who couldn't break into the Middlesex side were playing for the Somerset county. in the 1931 season, Harry scored a century for Middlesex while Frank and Jack scored their respective centuries for Somerset, thus creating the first instance of three professional brothers all scoring first-class centuries in the same season.
Yet, after all of this craziness involved in Harry's career, a unique incident was yet to occur. Two years later, Harry Lee was caught for 82 runs by Frank Lee from the bowling of Jack Lee, which until now has never happened again in the sport. Later in 1934, Harry (into the mid-40s) was dropped from the Middlesex side in order to give youngsters an opportunity. Soon, his contract was terminated, much to his disappointment and he ended up playing 437 first-class matches and later moved into umpiring. Lee died in 1981, aged 90 becoming the second oldest test cricketer in England. Lee himself admitted that he wasn't the most brilliant cricketer, but the journey of his life made him one of the most special names in the history of the sport.
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