Paul Whitelaw

Who was Paul Whitelaw?

Paul Erskine Whitelaw was a cricketer who played for Auckland and New Zealand.

A right-handed opening batsman with a fine array of strokes, Whitelaw played first-class cricket for Auckland with some success from 1928-29 to 1946-47, averaging 37 runs per innings. Yet he made only two Test match appearances, both on the short tour of New Zealand by the 1932-33 MCC side that followed the Bodyline tour of Australia. Both matches were dominated by the batting of Walter Hammond, who scored 563 runs in two innings, being dismissed just once. Whitelaw made 64 runs from four innings, two of them not out. But though he represented New Zealand in matches against the MCC team led by Errol Holmes in 1935-36, he never played Test cricket again.

In 1934-35, playing for Auckland against Wellington, he scored 115, his first first-class century, in the first innings, and 155 in the second innings. In 1936-37, playing for Auckland against Otago at Dunedin, Whitelaw and Bill Carson set a world record that stood for almost 40 years by adding 445 for the third wicket.