Colin Leslie McCool (9 December 1916 – 5 April 1986) was an Australian cricketer who played in 14 Test matches between 1946 and 1950. McCool, born in Paddington, New South Wales, was an all-rounder who bowled leg spin and googlies with a round arm action and as a lower order batsman was regarded as effective square of the wicket and against spin bowling. He made his Test début against New Zealand in 1946, taking a wicket with his second delivery. He was part of Donald Bradman's Invincibles team that toured England in 1948 but injury saw him miss selection in any of the Test matches.
A good tour of South Africa in 1949–50 was followed by a lack of opportunity in the next two seasons, leading McCool to sign a contract to play professional cricket in the Lancashire League in 1953. Three years later, Somerset County Cricket Club recruited McCool where he was a success, especially as a middle-order batsman; he played five seasons and saw the club achieve its highest place in the County Championship since 1892. He retired from cricket in 1960 and returned to Australia to work as a market gardener. He died in Concord, New South Wales on 5 April 1986.
As a child growing up in Paddington, McCool attended Crown Street State School—earlier students included Victor Trumper and Monty Noble. He played his childhood cricket on concrete wickets in Moore Park and learnt to bowl from reading Clarrie Grimmett's instructional book, Getting Wickets. McCool played his early grade cricket with Paddington Cricket Club before coming to the notice of the New South Wales selectors. He made his first-class début for New South Wales against "Rest of Australia" in March 1940, making 19 and 15 and taking one wicket. While the Australian Cricket Board suspended the Sheffield Shield competition at the end of the 1939–40 season, at the request of the Australian government, a series of matches were arranged to raise money for wartime charities in the following 1940–41 season. McCool played in six of these matches for New South Wales, scoring 416 runs at average of 52.00 and taking 24 wickets at an average of 23.50.
McCool enlisted on 12 September 1941 and served as a Pilot Officer with the No. 33 Squadron of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). Stationed in New Guinea, McCool had reached the rank of Flight Lieutenant when he was discharged from the RAAF on 18 September 1945.
After the war, he moved to Toombul District Cricket Club in Brisbane and was selected in the Queensland cricket team. Playing for Queensland, he formed a formidable partnership with wicket-keeper Don Tallon, who also played for Toombul. He was selected in the Australian team to tour New Zealand in 1945–46, making his Test début at the Basin Reserve in Wellington. He made seven runs in Australia's only innings and took a wicket with his second ball in Test cricket; the last man dismissed in the Test, Don McRae.
The following season, Wally Hammond's England cricket team travelled to Australia for the 1946–47 Ashes series. In a warm-up match before the series, McCool performed well for Queensland against the English tourists at the Brisbane Cricket Ground (the 'Gabba), taking nine wickets and "the English batsmen seemed like rabbits fascinated in the presence of a snake". He was selected for the First Test at the same ground the following week. He just missed out on a century on his Ashes debut, scoring 95 and only bowling one over as Australia won the Test by an innings and 332 runs. In the Second Test at Sydney, McCool took eight wickets, including the prize wicket of Hammond twice. Australia won by an innings and 33 runs. The Third Test at Melbourne saw McCool make his maiden Test century, 104 not out in a drawn match. The Melbourne businessman and underworld figure, John Wren had promised McCool one pound for every run he made that innings; this was at a time when ten pounds was the average weekly wage in Australia. The cheque—given to McCool the next day—allowed him to place a deposit on a house.
He played in the remaining two Tests, making 272 runs at an average of 54 and taking 18 wickets at just over 27 apiece. He took 5/44 in the Fifth Test. Wisden Cricketers' Almanack wrote that his batting featured "wristy cuts" and "vigorous hooks", opining that there were "few better players of spin bowling on a difficult pitch". Wisden said that his slow and loopy leg spin was "a clever mixture of leg-breaks and googlies".
India toured Australia for the first time in 1947–48. McCool played in three Tests without much success, scoring only 46 runs and taking only four wickets. Nevertheless, he was selected as part of Australian team to tour England in 1948 that would be known as the Invincibles. He took 57 wickets on the tour but bowling for long periods caused him to continually tear a callus on his third finger, used to impart spin on the ball. As a result, his captain, Don Bradman, felt compelled to leave him out of the Test matches, feeling that his finger would not be able to handle the necessarily long bowling spells. This decision was aided by the then existing rule allowing a new ball to be used every 55 overs, allowing Bradman to use his fast bowlers more often. For the rest of his career, McCool was troubled by the skin rubbing off his spinning finger. McCool and his fellow fringe members of the squad, Ron Hamence and Doug Ring, would refer themselves as the "ground-staff" as it was unlikely that the tour selectors would include them in the Test team that tour. The cricket writer Alan Gibson, who knew McCool well in his later cricket career at Somerset, wrote that the omission "distressed him greatly at the time, though he could be philosophical enough about it later".
He played in all five Tests on tour against South Africa. He took 51 wickets in all matches, including 5/41 in the Second Test at Newlands. In 1950–51, McCool was the leading wicket taker in the Sheffield Shield competition, however he was not selected in the Test team against the touring English; nor against the West Indies the following season.
Prior to the 1953 Australian team to tour England, McCool signed a professional contract with Lancashire League team East Lancashire, replacing fellow Australian leg spinner Bruce Dooland. In his first season in the league, he was the leading wicket-taker with 93 wickets at the low average of 10.2 runs per wicket, and he also made 678 runs at an average of 33.9. The following year, he played less often: his 547 runs came at the better average of 42.1 but his 52 wickets cost 13.1 apiece, and East Lancashire, who had finished either first or second in the Championship ten times in the previous twelve seasons, finished 10th out of 14. He did not return to East Lancashire for the 1955 season due to being contracted to play county cricket for Somerset. The cricket writer Alan Gibson, who knew McCool well, wrote that "after he had made the decision to come, an extension of the qualifying period for overseas cricketers kept him waiting even longer".
Delayed by the change to the rules, McCool had a five-year stint from 1956 in English county cricket. Somerset, having finished on the bottom of the County Championship table for the four years between 1952 and 1955, had embarked on a renewal programme. Part of the programme involved a vigorous recruiting campaign, including an offer to McCool that saw him return to first-class cricket at the age of 39.
At Somerset, McCool was an instant success as a batsman, scoring 1,967 runs in his first season, including three centuries and a highest score of 141. After four seasons, Somerset came off the bottom of the County Championship (to 15th out of 17), and Wisden was in no doubt of McCool's influence: "Much of the credit for the all-round improvement went to one man – McCool," it wrote. "At the start of the season it was hoped that the former Australian Test leg-break bowler would lend power and variety to the attack. From that viewpoint his 45 wickets at over thirty runs apiece might be counted disappointing. But with the bat McCool exceeded all expectations. He was one of the most consistent scorers in the country and he failed by only 34 to reach 2,000 runs in his first season of county cricket. McCool was the backbone of a mediocre batting side, and he never departed from his natural attacking style." Against the touring Australians that season he made 90 and 116, the first innings 90 coming out of 139 in two-and-a-half hours and including 15 fours, the second innings century out of 167 in just 95 minutes, with four sixes and 14 fours. Wisden reported that he was "very severe on [Ian Johnson] and [Jack Wilson]".