A right-handed batsman, he played 35 Test matches for England, as captain in 22 of those games, and led the team to defeat in four Ashes series against Australia.

He was a deep thinker on the game and critics believed him to be tactically advanced, but his pessimism, clashes with the selectors and inability to get the best out of his players led most commentators to rate him a poor leader.

For many years, he was employed as Lancashire's assistant secretary but such were his financial worries that he often had to ask for cash advances from the committee, with which he had a stormy relationship.

With the aim of improving their ability in the game, MacLaren senior sent Archie and his older brother James to Elstree, a school well-regarded for its coaching.

Although an inexperienced Harrow team was easily defeated, MacLaren top-scored in both innings with scores of 55 and 67, and in praising his batting, critics suggested he had a bright future.

[19] Approached to organise a touring team by the Australian cricket authorities, Stoddart had been unable to persuade several leading batsmen to join his squad.

[8][23] On the six-week outward journey MacLaren met (Kathleen) Maud Power, an Australian socialite and the daughter of a horse racing official.

[23][41] Although he had batted only once in the season, he was chosen to play in the second Test match of the summer between England and Australia,[41] a selection made controversial by his lack of cricket.

[42] As the Test was played at Old Trafford, the England team was chosen by the Lancashire committee, who recognised that MacLaren would attract spectators as a local player.

Lancashire selected a replacement captain, but when MacLaren returned to England, he re-committed to the club, stating the visit to Australia had improved the health of his wife, and he was reappointed.

[23][89] The team for the third Test, played in Sheffield, was to be chosen from 12 players picked by the selectors, with the final place contested between Bill Lockwood and Schofield Haigh.

England were bowled out in poor light—MacLaren's biographer Michael Down suggests that part of the blame lies with him for not appealing against the light—and needed an unlikely 339 runs to win in their second innings.

[95] MacLaren was angry with Hawke, and when it rained before the match, included Tate in the final eleven at the expense of George Hirst, a leading all-rounder.

MacLaren was subsequently criticised for allowing Australia to score so quickly, but claimed that his carefully planned strategy was rendered obsolete when Trumper began to strike the ball out of the ground.

[100] Gibson suggests that the implication that only MacLaren could have guided England to victory must have had a demoralising effect on the remaining batsmen,[100] and speculates that he felt guilty over the composition of a team that looked likely to lose.

Newspaper rumours suggested that Lord Hawke played a part in this decision, and that MacLaren's recent paid role for Lancashire counted against him.

[122] MacLaren attended his installation on 11 March—MacLaren and the politician Arthur Priestley were the only English attendees[123]—and did not return to England until mid-June, although he informed Lancashire that his absence in India was to recover from an illness.

[124] MacLaren subsequently scored his first century for two years, but he did little in the remainder of the season, at the end of which he again resigned the captaincy of Lancashire, conscious of his failing form and fitness.

[132] In summarising Ranjitsinhji's life at this time, Wilde suggests that his unreliability with money was quite calculated, and writes: "Many of his off-the-field exploits with A. C. MacLaren ... will probably never be known, but it seems clear that sometimes they were not averse to conducting themselves in the fashion of E. W. Hornung's fictional character Raffles, the cricketing burglar.

The idea of letting England go into the field in fine weather, on a typical Oval wicket, with no fast bowler except Sharp touched the confines of lunacy.

[8] MacLaren played regularly for Lancashire at the start of 1910, but his poor form continued until midway through the season, when he scored centuries in successive matches.

[155] MacLaren planned meticulously for the match; he chose an all-amateur team, selecting spin bowlers noted for their reliability and excellent fielders.

[161] Against the full New Zealand team, MacLaren scored 200 not out in 264 minutes in his final first-class innings; the effort placed a strain on his knee and he was unable to play again on the tour.

On the journey home, MacLaren sent a message to Lancashire asking for more money; the committee declined to send the sum and shortly afterwards terminated his contract as coach.

[2] Around this time, on a visit to America, MacLaren made a brief appearance in the Hollywood film The Four Feathers, which starred his friend, former cricketer C. Aubrey Smith.

[2][36] Gideon Haigh suggests: "If ever a cricketer was the creation of a single writer, it is MacLaren, the luminous majesty with which he is associated owed in very large degree to his youthful acolyte Neville Cardus.

[177] Contemporaries praised his tactical awareness; he planned minutely,[178] and organised his fields extremely carefully to prevent batsmen scoring through blocking their favourite shots, a technique practically unheard of at the time.

[181] Apart from his own failings, MacLaren had a reputation as an unlucky captain, both in terms of losing important players to injury and illness before vital games, and in the frequency with which he lost the toss before a match.

[174] In his history of the club, Peter Wynne-Thomas describes MacLaren as the dominant figure in Lancashire cricket from his debut until the First World War.

[170] Gibson accepts that MacLaren was tactically a good captain, but observes that in his 12 seasons as leader of a strong Lancashire team, he only once won the County Championship.