John Ernest Mills or known as Jackie Mills was a tall left-handed opening batsman, who was brought up in a cricket environment. His father was a groundsman at Eden Park, Auckland. Mills toured England in 1927 and amassed 1251 runs at 37.90, including five hundreds. However, there were no Tests played and he had to wait till 1929-30 when New Zealand were given Test status to play his first game.

In the second game against England, Mills was involved in a 276-run opening stand with Stewie Dempster - which was a record till Glenn Turner and Terry Jarvis put on 387 against West Indies. Mills scored 117 in that game - his best in Test cricket. He returned to England in 1930 and scored heavily again, 1368 runs at 31.81. However, he couldn't quite replicate it in the Tests, scoring 91 runs in four innings. His last match was versus England at Auckland in 1932-33, where he had another failure.

Trivia: Mills was the first New Zealand batsman to score a hundred on debut.


By Akshay Maanay