He came to the notice of the Australian secret service during the 1924–25 MCC (England) tour, and it is possible he helped to establish small fascist groups in Australia.

[2] He was the second of four children born to Willie Austin Gilligan (1864-1940),[3] a manager for Liebig's Extract of Meat Company, and Alice Eliza, née Kimpton; his brothers Frank and Harold also played high-level cricket.

Consequently, Gilligan faced little competition for his place in the team and took 32 wickets at an average of under 27 in Cambridge matches, which critics considered a poor return.

[9] He made a bigger impression when, batting at number eleven in the order, he scored 101 against Sussex and shared a last-wicket partnership of 177 in 65 minutes with John Naumann.

[9] Towards the end of the season, Gilligan played three first-class matches for Surrey and made a further appearance in a festival game, although he accomplished little with bat or ball.

[10][11] At the end of the season, he changed counties; his family connections in the area, and the presence of his brother Harold in the team, led him to register with Sussex.

[10][11] Subsequently, Gilligan left Cambridge and joined Gilbert Kimpton & Co., a general produce merchant in London in which his father was a senior partner.

The team were more successful during his second appearance; he took six wickets in the match, and his batting at a crucial stage of the match—he scored 39 not out in the second innings—was vital in a victory which gave the series to England 2–1.

[10][11] With Maurice Tate,[6] whose emergence as a pace bowler was encouraged by Gilligan,[19] he established a bowling partnership which proved effective over the following two seasons.

It concluded: "It is not claimed for Arthur Gilligan, by even his warmest admirers, that he can be classed among great fast bowlers, but he is a very good one, combining with the right temperament and tireless energy just the extra bit of pace that to many batsmen is so distasteful.

[21] Instead, the selectors appointed Gilligan as captain for the 1924 series against South Africa, in an attempt to assess whether he possessed the playing ability to justify his selection in the role.

[5][23] It is likely that the strain of the innings did as much harm as the original blow,[2] although Gibson later wrote that Gilligan's subsequent long life suggests that he was not too badly hurt, and that it is unlikely too much damage was done.

[10][11] By mid-July, Gilligan had been named as captain of the MCC team to tour Australia at the end of the English cricket season and was expected to be one of the leading bowlers.

[33] Other aspects of Gilligan's leadership were less successful; his captaincy lacked tactical sophistication,[33] and the Australian captain Herbie Collins proved superior in this respect.

[32] In addition, his inexperience led to defeat in one warm-up match that the MCC could have drawn,[32] and commentators dismissed him as naive and easy-going on the field.

The periodical Cricket described him as "'one of the most jovial personalities imaginable", while former Australian Test captain Monty Noble wrote that Gilligan was the "type of man who, in the most unostentatious way, can do more than all the politicians and statesmen to cement the relations between the Homeland and the Dominions".

[35] After Australia won the first two Tests, Parkin, writing in England, once more criticised Gilligan's leadership in the press and provoked a minor controversy by suggesting that Jack Hobbs should assume the captaincy.

[36] Australia won by the small margin of 11 runs, though Gilligan helped to take his team close to victory with a restrained innings of 31.

There were concerns within Australian society over the growing influence of communism and, according to the historian Andrew Moore, some commentators hoped that the tour would help to ease tension.

[42] Shortly after the tour's conclusion, the Commonwealth Investigative Branch uncovered evidence that the British Fascists had established chapters in several Australian cities, although they did not know how this had happened.

"[44] Moore judges that the article was neither well written nor particularly persuasive, but notes that other writers at the time made the connection between sport, cricket, the ideology of the British Empire and Fascism.

[10][11] That season, although no longer considered for a place in the England team himself, Gilligan joined the panel of Test selectors,[5][48] and as a consequence missed some cricket for Sussex.

[46] During the winter of 1926–27, with other candidates unavailable, Gilligan was chosen to captain an MCC team which toured India;[50] the side was not fully representative and did not play Test matches.

The players were left exhausted, necessitating the use of reinforcements to their number, including the occasional use of English cricketers who were coaching in India and, in several matches, the Maharajah of Patiala, who was a member of the MCC and entitled to play for the team.

[58] He successfully encouraged the Indians to form their own cricket board and promised to make a case with the Lord's authorities for India to become a Test playing team.

[notes 4][52][59] Bose points out that Gilligan's positive attitude towards Indians, and that of the MCC when granting India Test status, was markedly different from that of most Englishmen.

He bowled with his arm quite low, but was very accurate; his usual strategy was to aim at the stumps or to try to induce the batsmen to edge the ball to be caught in the slips.

[62] His Wisden obituary stated: "In two or three seasons by his insistence on fielding and on attacking cricket and by his own superb example he raised Sussex from being nothing in particular to one of the biggest draws in England.

"[65] Gilligan married his first wife, Cecilia Mary Matthews, in April 1921,[2] but she successfully filed for divorce in October 1933 on the grounds of her husband's infidelity.

[72] Gilligan, in his capacity as MCC president, was aware of this having seen a private letter which communicated the explicit threat from the South African prime minister B. J. Vorster that the forthcoming tour would be cancelled if D'Oliveira were selected.