WWI death of Australian Test hero Cotter revealed

Albert Cotter, a slinging fast bowler who played Ashes cricket in Australia and England between 1903 and 1912, died as an Anzac in the Australian Lighthorse charge on Beersheba, Paige Taylor tells us in the Australian. Based on research by Perth historian Andrew Sproul, the article says his death was never explained, even to his family.

"It seemed strange to me that so little was known about him, and that his death attracted so little attention," said Sproul, who is in Cotter's home town of Sydney this week to launch the book he researched with NSW lawyer Max Bonnell; Tibby Cotter: Fast Bowler, Larrikin, ANZAC ... Sproul believes the circumstances of Cotter's death were one of the reasons it was glossed over at the time and later. "We now believe he was shot by a Turk who had surrendered but had not been checked for weapons," he said.

As much as possible in an era before television or internet, Cotter was a celebrity, His face was on cigarette cards and in newspapers throughout the British Empire. He changed the game of cricket forever as the first bowler to use the bouncer as a regular intimidatory weapon and the first to bowl to a slips cordon. Cotter's bowling style was like Jeff Thomson's. Cotter's strike rate is equal to Glenn McGrath and Dennis Lillee.