One of Australia's greatest cricketers was a protanope: a genetic detective story solved with the help of Schmidt's sign

Abstract

Abnormal colour vision is under-represented among first class cricketers and interviews with cricketers, all of whom had a mild colour vision defect, suggest there may be times when they lose sight of the red cricket ball against green surrounds. It is possible that severe abnormal colour vision precludes playing cricket at its highest competitive level. It is known that Bill Ponsford, who played Test cricket from 1924 to 1934 and was one of Australia's greatest batsmen, had abnormal colour vision. We have diagnosed him to be a protanope by tracing the abnormal colour vision exhibited by some of his descendents. We used Schmidt's sign using the Medmont C100 colour vision test to identify carriers of the protan gene to trace the protanopic gene to Ponsford with greater certainty. That such an accomplished batsman and highly regarded out-fielder should have a severe colour vision deficiency suggests that abnormal colour vision might not be, or at least need not be, a handicap to playing cricket at the most competitive levels.