Robert Maskew Cowper (5 October 1940 – 11 May 2025) was an Australian cricketer who played Test cricket for Australia from 1964 to 1968, and Sheffield Shield cricket for Victoria and Western Australia from 1960 to 1970. He scored the first Test cricket triple century on Australian soil, a 12-hour 307 against England at the MCG in February 1966. Two years later, he was in the Victorian team.
Cowper was dropped in the 1965–66 Ashes series for slow scoring. When he was recalled for the Fifth Test at Melbourne he made the first Test triple century in Australia: 307 from 589 balls in 727 minutes. It was the only Test triple century that was scored in Australia in the 20th century.
After his triple century, he was never omitted from the Test team until a hand injury forced him out of the Fifth Test in 1968. In the last 13 matches of his Test career (the 1966–67, 1967–68, and 1968 series), he scored 931 runs at 38.79 and took 31 wickets at 25.22. In those 13 matches, no other Australian player exceeded 800 runs, and only Graham McKenzie, with 49, took more wickets. Cowper was only 27 when he played his last Test, at Headingley in 1968, almost exactly four years after his first, at Headingley in 1964.
Later career
At the early age of 27, and having qualified as an accountant while playing cricket, Cowper decided to focus on stockbroking and merchant banking, eventually becoming a multi-millionaire. With regards to his decision to retire as a cricketer at the early age of 27, Cowper said:
<blockquote>One morning reality really hit me. I worked out that, for playing cricket for Australia for nine months out of the previous 12, my gross income for the year was $3,000. It was time to go. In the 1980s, he moved to Monaco. He was Australia's representative to the International Cricket Council from 1987 to 2001. In the 2023 King's Birthday Honours, he was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in recognition for his service to cricket.
Death
Cowper died in Melbourne on 11 May 2025, at the age of 84.