New SCG stand named after Victor Trumper

Victor Trumper will have a permanent place on the SCG's old hill after the new grandstand was named after him in a ceremony at the ground on Thursday. Trumper was described by Rodney Cavalier, the SCG Trust chairman, as the "the finest Test cricketer Australia has produced".

"His peers did not have a bad word to say of him in life or death," Cavalier said. "None who saw Victor Trumper conceded they ever saw his equal.

"So good was Trumper that cricket writers, attempting to make an assessment of just how good was the Bradman boy from Bowral, dared to compare Don Bradman to Vic Trumper. No other superlative worked, not while the memory of Vic had living witnesses."

Trumper was a graceful batsman who played 48 Tests between 1899 and 1912, scoring 3163 runs at an average of 39.04. At 37, three years after finishing his international career, he died of kidney disease.

He beat a field that included the Waugh brothers and Richie Benaud for the naming rights to the $70m stand, which will be completed in December and be ready for Australia's Test against South Africa on January 3. The extra 8,700 seats will lift the capacity to 47,000.

Trumper was born in Darlinghurst, not far from the SCG, and had strong links to the other sports that have been contested at the stadium. "If Trumper had only ever played cricket, his deeds on the field of play alone qualify him for the name ahead of all others," Cavalier said. "Consider then that Vic played representative games of rugby union and Australian football on our ground.

"He was good enough at Australian football that he could well have played for the Swans if that possibility had existed." He was also a founder of rugby league, which is celebrating its centenary this year.

In Trumper's Almanack obituary it said he was great under all conditions of weather and ground. "He could play quite an orthodox game when he wished to, but it was his ability to make big scores when orthodox methods were unavailing that lifted him above his fellows."