by Chris Waters
Of all the duels in his cricketing career, Verity chiefly relished those with Bradman. Lesser bowlers would have baulked at the thought; not many relished bowling at “The Don”. The greatest batsman cricket has known, Bradman married panache with pragmatism. R. C. Robertson-Glasgow called him “that rarest of Nature’s creatures, a genius with an eye for business”. Born in the tiny community of Cootamundra, New South Wales, on 27 August 1908, Bradman was brought up in the country town of Bowral, about 70 miles south-west of Sydney. As a boy, he repeatedly struck a golf ball against a water tank with a cricket stump, the ball rebounding at varying angles in a practice routine that sharpened his reflexes. Just five foot seven, and physically unimposing, Bradman was blessed with rare determination. As Wisden put it, “He could be 250 not out and yet still scampering the first run to third man or long leg with a view to inducing a fielding error.” Legend has it that Bradman called his 309 in a day at Leeds in 1930 “a nice bit of practice for tomorrow”.
Verity was cut from comparable cloth and enjoyed the challenge of confronting the best. The Yorkshireman was similar to Sherlock Holmes: he liked major problems, not minor ones. Not for Verity the facile task of bamboozling batsmen on a turning pitch, the equivalent of Holmes undertaking to find a missing moggy on Baker Street. Verity’s idea of heaven was bowling to Bradman on a surface like marble in strength-sapping heat; it was akin to Holmes’s desire to extend himself against Professor Moriarty – even to the depths of the Reichenbach Falls. Verity savoured the peril of the precipice. Like Moriarty to Conan Doyle’s sleuth, Bradman presented his paramount challenge, the ultimate test of nerve and skill. Easy pickings were for the Inspector Lestrades of the cricketing world, plodding Joes who could no more appreciate the subtleties of bowling than Bradman could bespoil the high arts of batting. Verity wanted a task for his mind as well as his fingers.
Don Bradman pictured during his then world record Test innings of 334 at Headingley in 1930. “The Don” admitted he was “never sure” with Verity, who dismissed him more times than anyone in Test cricket.
Such was Verity’s desire to develop himself, J. M. Kilburn said he was “genuinely sorry when Bradman had to miss a Test match”. When Verity removed Bradman with his first ball at Melbourne in 1937, Kilburn said he was “almost disappointed”, adding: “The catch at short leg was too much in the nature of a batting accident for Verity to savour full satisfaction. His pleasures were in the longer term, pleasures of the great opponent harassed to a final mis-hit or bullied to an error of momentary over-assurance. Verity wanted to work for Bradman’s wicket, to develop a plan, to watch the closing of a trap.” Verity himself had a saying: “Do not praise me when I have taken eight for 20 on a sticky wicket, but when I have got two for 100 on a perfect wicket.” It raises the possibility that his 10 for 10 might not have meant more to him than some of his less remarkable analyses.
Verity’s approach was strength and weakness. Kilburn, who watched him more than any other writer, said he sometimes over-complicated in pursuit of perfection. “There were times in county cricket when he appeared to be deliberately making the game harder for himself by insisting on achievement in a predetermined manner; when he seemed to spend three overs preparing an lbw snare against a batsman who, unharassed, would probably have mis-hit into the covers anyway.” Kilburn said Verity sometimes became “‘sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought’, and spent so much time in laying plans to deceive his enemies that he neglected to use the weapons the gods had given him, and ignored spin upon turning wickets to engage in the less obvious delights of a battle of wits”. Kilburn felt Verity took time to recover from the Bodyline campaign and the containing role that Jardine commanded. He said Verity returned to county cricket with a “maiden-complex” and “appeared satisfied to permit batsmen to stay at the crease providing they acknowledged themselves under his control”. Kilburn added it was only a passing phase and that “the benevolent despot” soon became “the insistent conqueror”.
Verity’s taste for bowling at Bradman was swelled by his striking record against him. Verity dismissed him eight times in Tests – more than anyone else – and a record-equalling 10 times in first-class cricket along with Australian leg-spinner Clarrie Grimmett. R. C. Robertson-Glasgow paid Verity the signal compliment of saying that he alone kept Bradman’s Test average beneath 150 and felt he was “one of only three or four bowlers who came to the battle with Bradman on not unequal terms”. Kilburn said honours between the two men “were not so much divided as added together, bowling enhanced by the power in the batting and batting elevated by the skill and persistence in the bowling”. Just as Verity esteemed Bradman, so Bradman admired Verity. Bradman said he was “never sure” with Verity and bemoaned the fact “there’s no breaking point with him”. Bradman admitted he could “never claim to have completely fathomed Hedley’s strategy, for it was never static or mechanical”. Against Verity, Bradman’s Test average near-halved to 50.12, Verity conceding 401 runs from the 932 balls he bowled to him.
Verity played 40 Test matches, taking 144 wickets at 24.37. Seventeen of those games were against Bradman, although Bradman was unable to bat at The Oval in 1938 after injuring an ankle. That was Verity’s last Ashes Test and one of the most famous, England winning by an innings and 579 runs on the back of Len Hutton’s 364 to level the series 1-1, a result that was insufficient to regain the Ashes after Australia overturned a 2-0 deficit in 1936–37. The 22-year-old Hutton batted 13 hours and 17 minutes, faced 847 balls and struck 35 fours in a record total of 903 for seven declared, his innings beating the previous Ashes best of 334 by Bradman at Leeds in 1930 and Wally Hammond’s world Test record 336 not out against New Zealand at Auckland in 1933. Verity and Hutton were friends; they played golf and Verity gave the young man driving lessons near his home in Pudsey. At The Oval, where Yorkshire had five representatives with Maurice Leyland, Bill Bowes and Arthur Wood also playing, Verity made a point of staying with Hutton during the lunch and tea breaks to ensure his concentration did not falter. Hutton said Verity’s “quiet, natural dignity” was “an immense source of strength to me throughout those long hours”, while Verity further eased Hutton’s tension by taking him to Bognor Regis on the rest day of the game. They lunched with one of Verity’s school friends and, in the afternoon, played cricket on the beach.
“The style, the poise on light toes, the swing of the arm from noon to evening” – Neville Cardus on Verity in motion.
Verity’s penultimate Test was on the 1938–39 tour of South Africa and one of cricket’s most remarkable matches. England were 654 for five in the fifth and final game in Durban, chasing 696, when they had to halt their pursuit to catch the boat home. A thunderstorm had prevented play after tea on day 10, and England had to take the 8.05 p.m. train in order to reach Cape Town in time to board the Athlone Castle. Insufficient time therefore remained to complete the last timeless Test, in which Verity bowled a then Test record 95.6 eight-ball overs (766 deliveries) and took four wickets.
Just as Australia and Bradman governed Test cricket in the 1930s, so Yorkshire dominated the county cricket decade. In addition to their seven Championships, they twice finished third and were once joint-fifth. Yorkshire played 292 Championship matches during that period, winning 164 and losing 26. Verity played 228 of them and was on the losing side just 17 times.
If popular wisdom dictates that bowlers win matches, Yorkshire’s titles were predominantly secured by Verity and Bowes. Between them they took 51% of the club’s Championship wickets during the 30s, their most successful season being 1932, when their combined contribution climbed to 66%. Like Larwood and Voce they worked together, creating wickets for one another and sometimes turning batsmen round if one of them fancied a particular player. They discussed the game endlessly – Bowes was another of cricket’s deep thinkers, a characteristic that cemented their friendship. Perhaps because of their dissimilar styles, the duo co-operated rather than competed. There was joy not jealousy at each other
’s triumphs, shared celebration with no hint of envy. Bowes might prosper against the top-order, prising open the door for Verity. They were the beating heart of a great Yorkshire side.
Hedley Verity and Bill Bowes, bosom buddies and the beating heart of a great Yorkshire side.
Usually they were favoured with the platform of runs. Yorkshire’s batsmen scored swiftly and sizeably, affording scope to weave wicket-taking spells. The team played classic three-day cricket, recording big totals and defending them often. The component parts were a well-oiled machine. Superlative fielding backed up the bowlers. Under the strict instruction of Sellers, Yorkshire’s fielders stood a yard closer to the bat than those of their rivals, ensuring shots that would not have carried to orthodox positions suddenly became conspicuous chances. Verity’s chief accomplices were Arthur Mitchell (160 catches) and Arthur Wood (67 catches, 119 stumpings), who combined in 22% of his dismissals for the club. Mitchell was mostly gully to Verity, standing between square and a foot-and-a-half behind – sometimes barely a yard from the bat. The record “c Mitchell b Verity” was a standard scorebook entry of the period, the pair as synonymous in county cricket as Marks & Spencer in the world of commerce. Indeed, there was no greater irony when Verity took 10 for 10 than the fact Mitchell was off the field injured after being hit by Larwood. Verity himself was an excellent fielder, mainly in the slips or at short leg or gully. He took 269 catches in 378 first-class games.
Verity’s analyses continued to astound. In 1933, on the Leyton ground where Holmes and Sutcliffe added 555 the previous year, he took 17 for 91 – still the joint eighth-best match figures of all time. Verity claimed all his wickets in a single day, a feat matched only by Colin Blythe (17 for 48 for Kent against Northamptonshire at Northampton in 1907) and Tom Goddard (17 for 106 for Gloucestershire against Kent at Bristol in 1939). In 1936, Verity took nine for 12 from 6.3 overs against Kent at Sheffield, the fourth-cheapest nine-wicket haul on record, the only wicket he didn’t take being the first one of opening batsman Arthur Fagg, whom he caught off pace bowler Frank Smailes. Verity took six for 26 in the first innings too, his match return of 15 for 38 the second-best of his career. Along with his two 10-wicket performances, Verity claimed seven nine-fers, 13 eight-fers and 34 seven-fers, recording 164 five-wicket hauls and 10 wickets in a match 54 times.
The cheapest of those seven-fers was in his final first-class game in 1939, when he took seven for nine against Sussex at Hove. It was the last first-class match in England before the war and played in a surreal yet stubborn atmosphere. “The tension was awful,” recalled the Sussex batsman George Cox. “There was a feeling that we shouldn’t be playing cricket. Yet there was also a festive air. We knew that this was to be our last time of freedom for many years and so we enjoyed ourselves while we could.”
Cox scored 198 as Sussex made 387 before Yorkshire closed a run-filled first day on 112 for one. The champions moved to 330 for three on a rain-hit day two, Hutton contributing 103. On 1 September, the final day, the news came through that Germany had invaded Poland, making war certain. At Old Trafford, Lancashire’s match with Surrey was abandoned and all county games due to start the next day were cancelled. The Yorkshire committee wired Sellers to suggest that the Brighton fixture was called off too, but Sellers said that as it was a benefit game for Sussex’s Jim Parks, the players would like to continue if possible. The request was agreed, and Yorkshire promptly lost their last seven wickets in the opening hour to finish 392 all out, Norman Yardley top-scoring with 108. Beneath a blazing sun, Verity was unplayable on a drying pitch as Sussex sank to 33 all out, the visitors easing to a nine-wicket win. With long distance train services having been cancelled, Yorkshire were forced to improvise transport. A green Southdown coach was arranged and, by mid-afternoon, the team were heading north through the quiet Sussex lanes. Kilburn, riding with them, recalled:
There was no guessing precisely what the future held, but there was no escaping the reflection that a well-loved way of life was being shattered, perhaps beyond repair. The anxiety of the uncertain hung heavily in the air. Scarcely anyone mentioned cricket, though the past few days had brought cricket of uncommon quality. For a mile or two the route led down the Great West Road towards London. In that direction there was no other traffic; the opposite path was crowded to danger point with every conceivable kind of vehicle carrying every conceivable cargo. Perambulators, bedding, household goods, food hampers were piled on passing cars which were hastening out of London as precaution against bombing. Coach-loads of children swept by to unknown foster homes. Urgency covered the earth. An experimental blackout had been ordered throughout the country for that Friday night and it was felt advisable not to attempt to drive through the darkness. Like Cardinal Wolsey on another significant journey, Yorkshire halted at Leicester. Luggage was left in the coach overnight; thoughts were beyond the creature comforts of shaving tackle and a clean collar, and the journey was to be continued soon after dawn. In any event there was little sleep. Half the night was spent in awaiting delayed telephone calls to explain revised arrangements, and before eight o’clock on the Saturday morning Yorkshire were in Yorkshire again. Halts began, one passenger dropping off here, another there. Finally came journey’s end in City Square, Leeds, and thence departed their several ways one of the finest county teams in the history of cricket. It never assembled again.
9
The Valiant End
Hedley Verity’s father was waiting to meet him when he returned from his final fixture at Hove. No sooner had the team reached City Square, within the shadow of Leeds railway station, than he found his son in reflective mood. After shaking hands and exchanging pleasantries, they shared a conversation that came to be poignant. Following his son’s death during the war, Verity senior wrote: “On his return from his last match at Brighton in 1939, I met him at the station. He greeted me with: ‘This is the end of my cricket career.’ I said, ‘Nonsense, you have many years of cricket before you, even if this war lasts as long as the last.’ He replied: ‘I tell you, this is the end of cricket for me.’ How many times have those words come back to my mind during the past weeks.”
Verity junior saw war coming in 1937 and correctly predicted it would last six years. In 1938, at the time of the Munich Crisis caused by Germany’s annexation of Czechoslovakia, he was reunited with an old acquaintance in the Headingley pavilion. Verity first met Lieutenant-Colonel Arnold Shaw of the Green Howards during the 1933–34 tour of India at a party after the Madras Test. Now he quietly took him to one side to ask how best he could serve his country. Shaw recalled: “Hedley asked my advice on what he could do and how best to prepare for it, if war should come. His profession prevented him from joining the Territorial Army or any civil defence organisation, as his cricket travels would make it impossible for him to fulfil his obligations. So I made an alternative suggestion: I promised and subsequently gave him a collection of military books, advised him to study them and arranged that when war did come he would get in touch with me.”
Len Hutton remembered that Verity spent much of his free time during the 1938–39 tour of South Africa eagerly devouring these military manuals. He studied them with the same diligence with which he applied himself to dismissing batsmen. Army tactics and manoeuvres were assimilated as ardently as Douglas Jardine’s strategies to stop Don Bradman. Now Verity had his sights on a different opponent – Adolf Hitler.
Verity’s attitude to Hitler was simple. He recognised that he had to be stopped. Verity’s sister, Grace, recalled her brother’s warning as war approached. “This is no chuffing garden party,” he said. “This fellow Hitler means it if we don’t stop him. We have got to stop him.” The peace-loving Verity believed in the war. Colonel Shaw said his attitude to the Germans was: “They started it, now let them take it.”
Remarkably, just as Verity studied the workings of warfare, so Hitler studied the laws of cricket. A few days after the 10 for 10, the Yorkshire Evening News carried an article headlined “Adolphe Hitl
er As I Know Him” by Carel Hautman, published to mark the German elections of 1932. Hautman recalled that Hitler requested during the First World War that a British prisoner write out for him the laws of the game. Hitler even tried his hand at the sport in a “friendly” between POWs and German soldiers. However, Hautman made clear that Hitler studied cricket “not because he had time to play games but because it might prove good training for warfare”. He said Hitler – although impressed with cricketing strategy – ultimately considered the game too soft. “To Hitler, cricket did not seem manly enough. Why, he wanted to know, did the batsmen wear pads on their legs and gloves on their hands? The knowledge that if the ball beat the bat it would produce a heavy bruise should make the batsman more alert and the temporary pain would be good training.” Hautman, who claimed “it is men like Hitler that the world needs to drag it from its terrible lethargy”, said the Nazi leader turned his back on the sport. “Eventually, Hitler dismissed cricket as serious training for warfare – and I am appalled to think what he would have said had he sat beside me at Lord’s not so many days ago and seen the monotonous stops for bad light, tea and refreshments.”
Verity joined up in October 1939 along with Bill Bowes. The cricketers, who’d done most things together, planned to take infantry commissions, but Bowes was unable after a knee operation and instead became a gunnery officer. He took part in the North Africa campaign and was captured at Tobruk in 1942, spending the rest of the war as a POW and losing four-and-a-half stone. Verity was gazetted in the Green Howards in the winter of 1939 and posted to 1st Battalion under Colonel Shaw. The regimental depot was at Richmond, North Yorkshire, and Verity helped train NCOs. He bowled to them in the nets after army training and fastidiously maintained his physical fitness. The young men idolised him and responded to his fair-minded leadership. A fellow Green Howards officer said: “There was short shrift for the man who shirked his duties but with others, the slow and persevering, he displayed infinite patience.”