Xavier College prodigy Karl Schneider was destined for stardom when selected ahead of a young Don Bradman for Australia’s 1928 tour of New Zealand, until cruelly being struck down by illness.

His feats were one so young were astonishing and included, while still a schoolboy, a major part in Victoria’s world record first-class score. A move to South Australia where he averaged 50-plus in two Shield seasons hastened his selection in an Australian touring team to NZ – ahead of a young Don Bradman.

Batting at No.3 for Australia in the final unofficial Test on that tour, Karl was considered a certainty to play in the home Ashes series in 1928-29. But while holidaying with the team on Mt Cook at the end of the tour, he fell ill and died five months later of leukaemia, aged 23. The young Don took his place in the Ashes team while Karl quickly fell into obscurity – the Age of Bradman was upon us.

Author Michael Lefebvre’s initial quick inspection of some donated family memorabilia disclosed a wealth of material: family trees, letters (spanning the 1870s to the 1970s), postcards, telegrams (of congratulations and condolence), school prize books and trophies, family and sporting photographs, dinner menus, newspaper clippings and posters , handwritten scorecards, field placings for cricket and game plans for football, university notes and exam papers, dance cards (with pencil attached), Melbourne Cricket Club season tickets and, promisingly, a tiny green diary for 1925 (which sadly Karl, maintained for only nine weeks).

Karl’s story is interesting and significant. His brief 23 years included events and episodes that are fascinating, not just in a sporting sense but also in the context of Australia’s social history in the periods before, during and immediately after World War One.

Here is a sample:

• His German-born father Vincent Schneider, a naturalised Australian citizen, being forced to sell his Burwood Road butcher’s shop during the war and leave his family to work interstate;
• The Hawthorn Council changing ‘Karl Street’, adjoining Grace Park in Hawthorn where Karl played as a child, to ‘Charles Street’ in order to ‘eliminate everything German from the municipality’;
• The extensive press coverage given to public school sport in the 1920s which saw Karl appear regularly in the Melbourne dailies while still a schoolboy;
• Karl being photographed, a few days before resuming a new school year, with his new Victorian teammates in front of an MCG scoreboard showing a new world record score of 1059;
• Archbishop Daniel Mannix visiting Xavier to bless Karl and his teammates on the eve of a crucial football final;
• Karl and the rest of the winning first XI getting caught visiting sinful St Kilda during school hours and the lasting effects of the punishments meted out;
• The behind-the-scenes maneuverings to secure Karl’s residential scholarship at university;
• The nine-day Sheffield Shield match Karl spent as 12^th man that led to him relocating and restarting his career in Adelaide;
• Competing as a Norwood ‘Redleg’ against one of his mentors Vic Richardson in SANFL football and then under his captaincy in State and international cricket;
• Karl playing Shield cricket in timeless matches in the ‘Scoring Twenties’, hitting centuries against each of the other three States in what would turn out to be his final season;
• Working for the notorious Harry Hodgetts, Adelaide stockbroker and Board of Control member who would later employ Don Bradman (hence the title of Greg Baum’s article);
• Karl’s successful eight-week traverse of New Zealand with the Australian national team in early 1928; and
• His collapse on Mount Cook and his last days dealing with an incurable illness. ‘I think I’m done,’ he tells his sister.

Karl didn’t live to play in the Ashes Tests of 1928-29, the series that saw the debuts of Bradman and the equally tragic Archie Jackson. As a specialist left-handed opener, Karl would almost certainly have replaced the retired Warren Bardsley at the top of the Australian batting order.

Within the book’s title, Cricket’s Lost Prodigy, is an implied question: what did cricket lose as a result of Karl Schneider’s premature death? Apart from becoming the ‘next Bardsley’, as Karl was regularly labelled, there were respected contemporary commentators who saw in his leadership and tactical nous, qualities that could have led to him eventually captaining the Australian Test team. Beyond that lofty possibility, due to the establishment circles in which he moved, he might also have become a leading coach or, like Bradman, a high-level administrator, or even become a commentator on the game either in the press or in the emerging world of broadcasting. But all is just speculation and cricket’s ‘loss’ is ultimately irrelevant when compared to the grief suffered by his devastated family.

• ACS members and friends can pre-order Cricket’s Lost Prodigy through cricketbooks.com.au, or my phoning 0419 549 458

The book is entitled: Cricket’s Lost Prodigy and is available for $70 posted anywhere within Australia exclusively from cricketbooks.com.au

You will love it.