Donald Charles McKenna (7 July 1944 – 4 September 1995) was an Australian

cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

er who played South African domestic matches for

Border Borders are generally defined as geography, geographical boundaries, imposed either by features such as oceans and terrain, or by polity, political entities such as governments, sovereign states, federated states, and other administrative divisio ...

from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s. Born in

Perth Perth () is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth-most-populous city in Australia, with a population of over 2.3 million within Greater Perth . The ...

, Western Australia, McKenna moved to South Africa in 1971, and made his first-class debut for Border in the 1973–74 season of the

Currie Cup The Currie Cup () is South Africa's premier domestic rugby union competition featuring teams representing either entire provinces or substantial regions within provinces. Although it is the premier domestic competition, four South African franc ...

.First-class matches played by Donald McKenna (35)
– CricketArchive. Retrieved 18 January 2013. Usually playing as a

wicket-keeper In cricket, the wicket-keeper is the Cricket player, player on the fielding (cricket), fielding side who stands behind the wicket, ready to stop Delivery (cricket), deliveries that pass the batsman, and take a Caught, catch, Stumped, stump the ...

, he instead began for Border as a middle-order batsman, with the wicket-keeping position held by Charles Pope. However, for the 1974–75 season McKenna took over the keeping role for the full season. During the season, he also scored his first (and only) first-class

century A century is a period of 100 years or 10 decades. Centuries are numbered ordinally in English and many other languages. The word ''century'' comes from the Latin ''centum'', meaning ''one hundred''. ''Century'' is sometimes abbreviated as c. ...

, against

Orange Free State The Orange Free State ( ; ) was an independent Boer-ruled sovereign republic under British suzerainty in Southern Africa during the second half of the 19th century, which ceased to exist after it was defeated and surrendered to the British Em ...

. In the match, Border had been dismissed for 104 in its first innings, and were 27/4 in the second innings when McKenna entered. He proceeded to score 129

not out In cricket, a batsman is not out if they come out to bat in an innings and have not been dismissed by the end of an innings. The batsman is also ''not out'' while their innings is still in progress. Occurrence At least one batter is not out at ...

from his team's total of 237 runs, putting on

partnerships A partnership is an agreement where parties agree to cooperate to advance their mutual interests. The partners in a partnership may be individuals, businesses, interest-based organizations, schools, governments or combinations. Organizations m ...

of 70 runs with Christopher Davies for the eighth wicket and 108 runs with Gregory Haynes for the ninth wicket. However, Border still lost the match by eight wickets. McKenna remained Border's first-choice wicket-keeper for the following few seasons, including in matches in the limited-overs competition. From the 1977–78 season onwards, Border played in the newly created Castle Bowl, effectively the second division of the main Currie Cup. The following season, McKenna only played two matches, with the position of wicket-keeper again occupied by Charles Pope. He did go on to play as keeper in each of Border's matches in the 1979–80 season, which were to be his last at first-class level. Having been a steady middle-order batsman for most of his career, McKenna finished his 35-match first-class career with 1,754 runs at an

average In colloquial, ordinary language, an average is a single number or value that best represents a set of data. The type of average taken as most typically representative of a list of numbers is the arithmetic mean the sum of the numbers divided by ...

of 29.72, also taking 80 catches and three stumpings. McKenna returned to Australia in August 1980, dying in

Port Augusta Port Augusta (''Goordnada'' in the revived indigenous Barngarla language) is a coastal city in South Australia about by road from the state capital, Adelaide. Most of the city is on the eastern shores of Spencer Gulf, immediately south of the ...

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, which in ...

, in September 1995, aged 51.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:McKenna, Donald 1944 births 1995 deaths Australian cricketers Australian expatriate sportspeople in South Africa Border cricketers Cricketers from Perth, Western Australia Sportsmen from Western Australia 20th-century Australian sportsmen