Ian Craig - obituary - Telegraph Craig was to fare better against South Africa, not least when he made 213 against them for New South Wales in 1953, becoming, at 17, the youngest batsman to make a double century in first-class cricket in Australia. The cricket historian David Frith described this innings as "the most astonishing I have ever witnessed, even though it was not the ferocious South African attack of the 1960s." As with Norman O'Neill a short time later, Craig found himself being compared, rather too favourably, to a young Don Bradman. Yet he was not as talented and such a label only hindered his progress. Ian David Craig was born in Yass, New South Wales on June 12 1935, and educated at North Sydney Boys High School and Sydney University. Higher education and National Service interrupted his cricketing career, but did not appear to affect it. He made his first-class debut for New South Wales when only 16, scoring 91 against South Australia. On his Test debut, against South Africa in 1953, he made 53 and 47, and was to become the youngest captain of his state as well as of his country. During his captaincy, in 1957-8, Australia won the series against South Africa 3-0, and Craig managed to cope with the team manager having a heart attack. The manner in which he and Benaud, his friend to whom he was to relinquish the captaincy, approached the game was ahead of its time. Nowadays it is a common sight to see two fielders chasing after a ball to the boundary, one of them flicking it back to the other to throw to the wicketkeeper. Craig and Benaud were practitioners of such fielding in the 1950s when it was customary for just one individual to attempt to retrieve the ball. After returning home, Craig contracted hepatitis. Benaud then took the team on to greater heights by twice beating England. Craig was not to play for his country again. Needing to earn a living, he took up a position with Boots in Piccadilly to learn pharmacy. In his 11 Test matches, he made 358 runs at an average of 19.88, but did not score a century; his innings of 53 on his debut remained his highest. In all first-class cricket, which he played until 1962, he scored 7,328 runs at 37.96. "He never bowled a ball," in the jocular words of Frith. He stayed with Boots for the remainder of his working life, becoming managing director of its Australian subsidiary with responsibility for south-east Asia. Always a gentle person, he would not have been up to the rough and tumble of the professional sport in more recent times and disapproved of the aggressive sledging of his Australian successors. He became one of the instigators of the Bradman Foundation in Bowral, where he lived . He was a board member of the Sydney Cricket Ground Trust. Ian Craig is survived by his wife, Rosslyn, whom he married in 1962, and by their two sons and a daughter . Ian Craig, born June 12 1935, died November 16 2014