William Albert Stanley Oldfield MBE was an Australian cricketer and businessman. He played for New South Wales and Australia as a wicket-keeper. Oldfield's 52 stumpings during his Test career remains a record several decades after his final Test. The Test match career of Bert Oldfield might easily have finished before it had begun. A corporal in the 15th Field Ambulance, 15th Brigade, he was buried for several hours during the heavy bombardment of Polygon Wood in 1918 and was barely alive when rescued. Oldfield was small and wiry, with a quiet sense of humour and a genius for making friends. He had wonderfully quick reflexes which may have saved his life.

Oldfield was born in Alexandria, a suburb of Sydney, the seventh child of John William Oldfield, an upholsterer born in Manchester and his Australian wife Mary Gregory. He had learnt his cricket at Cleveland Street school in Sydney, where he showed promise both as a batsman and as a bowler. On leaving school he took up wicketkeeping, playing for Glebe in Sydney club cricket. During World War I, Oldfield served with the army in the first Australian Imperial Force as a Corporal in the 15th Field Ambulance. He was initially posted as a Private soldier to the 1st Australian Dermatological Hospital and in December 1915 embarked in Sydney for overseas service. He was wounded and knocked unconscious at Ypres Salient in 1917, and spent six months recovering from shell shock.

At the conclusion of the war he was selected to be part of the Australian Imperial Forces cricket team which played 28 first-class matches in Britain, South Africa and Australia between May 1919 and February 1920.

Oldfield made his first-class debut in England in 1919, and played his first Test match against England in his hometown of Sydney in the 1920–21 season. In 1921, it was reported that he entered into negotiations to play for Lancashire as an amateur. He had injured himself on the passage to the UK in 1921, giving Carter the chance to restore his position, although Oldfield replaced him for the last two Tests.

Becoming successful in business, Bert Oldfield opened a sports store in Sydney in 1922 and in 1929 married Ruth Maud Hunter at St Jude's Anglican Church, Randwick in Sydney’s eastern suburbs. He was dropped for several matches over the next few years, but established himself as Australia's automatic selection for wicket-keeper in the 1924–25 Ashes series against England.

In the fourth Test match Oldfield provided unforgettable evidence of the astonishing speed of his reflex actions, when he stumped Hobbs, Woolley, Chapman and Whysall in England's first and only innings. Hobbs was stumped off Jack Ryder, Woolley and Chapman off Mailey, and Whysall off Kelleway. Oldfield's piece de resistance was evidently the dismissal of Hobbs, when Ryder sent down an unexpectedly fast delivery that rose cap high: Hobbs, in avoiding the ball, moved momentarily out of his crease; Oldfield, meanwhile, in an amazing movement, had taken the ball and flicked a bail off.

In the fifth Test match Oldfield caught Hobbs in the first innings and stumped him in the second. In the first innings he caught him wide on the leg side off Gregory; this catch, says Wisden (1926), greatly influenced the course of the match - Australia in fact, went on to win by 307 runs. In the second innings Oldfield stumped Hobbs for 13, the bowler being a newcomer to Test cricket named Clarrie Grimmett, who signalled his arrival by taking five for 45 in the first innings and six for 37 in the second. Four of Grimmett's victims were stumped by Oldfield.

He missed only one other Test in his career, the fourth Test of the 1932/33 Bodyline series. In the notorious third Test at Adelaide, the English Bodyline tactic of bowling fast balls directed at the Australian batsmen's bodies reached its most dramatic moment when a ball from fast bowler Harold Larwood hit Oldfield in the head, fracturing his skull (although this was from a top edge off a traditional non-Bodyline ball and Oldfield admitted it was his fault). Oldfield was carried from the ground unconscious. He recovered in time for the fifth Test of the series. Always an easy-going personality, Oldfield immediately forgave Larwood for the incident, and the two eventually became firm friends when Larwood later emigrated to Australia. Oldfield played Test cricket for four more years, ending his career in 1937. He was named a Wisden Cricketer of the Year for 1927.

Australia toured England in 1934; Oldfield's wicketkeeping was as good as ever, and, as usual, he rendered good service in the lower half of the batting order. His last game against England was in the fifth Test at Melbourne, in 1937, when Australia, having lost the first two Tests, came up from behind to win the match, and the Ashes. His farewell performance in a Test match was highly successful; he sent back Barnett, Allen and Voce in England's first innings and did not give away a bye in either innings. Altogether Bert Oldfield played in 38 Tests against England. Ten of his eleven matches against South Africa and all five against the West Indies were played towards the close of his career, so it is chiefly in the matches against England that he will be remembered. There can be no doubt that he was at his peak in the 1924/25 series against Gilligan's men; and in the 1926 tour of England.

Oldfield played 54 Tests for Australia, scoring 1,427 runs at an average of 22.65, and taking 78 catches and 52 stumpings. His tally of 52 stumpings remains a Test career world record; 28 were off Clarrie Grimmett alone. In first-class cricket he played 245 matches, scoring 6,135 runs at an average of 23.77, and taking 399 catches and 263 stumpings.

In November 1939 Bert Oldfield was commissioned as a Lieutenant in the 17th Infantry Battalion, Citizen Military Forces. He transferred to the AIF in April 1941 and worked with the Australian Army Amenities Service, was promoted to Captain the same year then to Major in 1943. Bert was posted to Headquarters, Second Australian Corps at the time of his discharge from the AIF in March 1946. Bert Oldfield still ranks in the top ten Australian Wicket Keepers with 130 dismissals over a Test Cricket career of 54 matches. Bert Oldfield’s cricket bat is on display at the Army Museum of New South Wales.

After retiring from cricket he coached, taking several schoolboys teams on overseas tours. In 1964, he spent a month coaching cricketers in Ethiopia, and met Haile Selassie. He was awarded an MBE in 1970. In 1988 a public school in Seven Hills, New South Wales was renamed as Bert Oldfield Public School to commemorate his life. A cricket oval in the Sydney suburb of Killara, where he lived later in life, is named in Oldfield's honour.