by John Lazenby
Verity and the rest of the wounded prisoners were ferried by open railway trucks through Sicily and put on board a ship to Reggio in southern Italy. He spent a night in a military hospital before being moved by goods train to Naples – a journey that lasted almost two excruciating days, with little food or water – and eventually reached the military hospital in Caserta on 26 July. He had become gravely ill by this time, his wound was infected and he had developed a fever. Alan Hill writes that, on his arrival at the hospital, he was met by a Leeds medical orderly, Corporal Henty, who asked him his name. ‘When he gave it I remarked, “Are you the Yorkshire cricketer?” He replied, “Yes, that’s me.” Immediately there was a great bond of sympathy between us because Hedley Verity was a name to conjure with,’ Henty recalled.
Verity was operated on three days later to remove part of a broken rib that was pressing against his lung. The operation was carried out with great skill, though only a local anaesthetic was used. At first the operation appeared to have been successful, but he then suffered the first of three haemorrhages. Verity remained conscious throughout and, according to Corporal Henty, was looking forward to his repatriation. ‘We took him out onto the veranda into the warm sunshine as often as we could,’ he said. It was clear, however, that he was growing weaker by the hour, and barely two days after the operation, on the afternoon of Saturday, 31 July, Verity passed away. He was 38.
There was a sombre postscript to Verity’s death, involving the South African cricket writer Louis Duffus. He was working as a war correspondent, based in Egypt during that time, and had driven to a military hospital on the North African coast to interview the Eastern Province cricketer, Des Dimbleby. He had been in action with a British unit on 20 July when Verity was wounded, and informed Duffus that he had since learned of the Englishmen’s death. ‘I mentioned it in my writing,’ Duffus related, ‘and was later told by a Cairo censor that it was the first news received of the death of the England bowler, a gentle and endearing person with whom I had travelled round South Africa during the 1938–39 tour.’
The news, when it was confirmed in England on 3 September 1943, was received with great shock and sadness. Yardley described it as a ‘crippling loss’ and, in a glowing tribute, wrote, ‘England lost perhaps the greatest cricketer of the inter-war period, modest, thoughtful, greatest in the greatest crisis, a man who never did a bad turn to anyone on the field, and who was liked and trusted by everyone who knew him.’ In an age when England were captained only by amateurs, the arch-autocrat Douglas Jardine even advanced the claims of Verity, describing him once as ‘the oldest head on young shoulders in English cricket’. He would have been almost 41 by the start of the 1946 season, but so finely tuned was his bowling that the batsman Arthur Mitchell had no doubt he would have continued to exert his powerful influence: ‘I had made up my mind that Hedley was booked to play for Yorkshire until he was 50.’
In 40 Tests the ‘scholarly’ Verity took 144 wickets at 24.37 apiece. He was at his most irresistible at Lord’s in 1934 when, in a single afternoon on a rain-affected surface, he routed Australia to capture 14 wickets for 80 runs. Yet for all his success, Cardus noted that, ‘He preferred to go to work on a flawless Australian wicket against Bradman than revel in a “sticky” pitch where the batsmen could set him few problems.’ His 766 balls in the timeless Test (95.6 eight-ball overs) pushed that inclination to its limits, and stood as a record for 17 years until overtaken by the West Indian Sonny Ramadhin (774) against England at Birmingham in May 1957. Twice Verity took ten wickets in an innings: against Warwickshire at Headingly in 1931, for 36 runs in 18.4 overs, and against Nottinghamshire, at the same venue a year later, for ten runs in 19.4 overs. The latter is a world record in first-class cricket for the fewest number of runs conceded by a bowler taking ten wickets in an innings, and included the hat-trick. In all first-class cricket he amassed 1,956 wickets, of which 1,558 were taken for Yorkshire at 13.71.
If there was a criticism of Verity it was said that he sometimes pushed the ball through too quickly, at the expense of flight and guile, and could appear almost mechanical in the process. Robertson-Glasgow, an unqualified admirer, would hear none of it and, in one perfectly pitched paragraph, succeeded in encompassing all the virtues of Verity, the bowler and the man:
Some say Verity is not a great bowler. They are wrong. I have had heard such adjectives as ‘good’ and ‘mechanical’ applied to him. The first is merely inadequate, the second is true in so far that he is nearly the perfect bowling machine directed by one of the most acute brains the game has known and kept in motion, against the best batsmen, by an indomitable courage.
ENGLAND
Walter Reginald Hammond (1903–65)
Gloucestershire
Record in the timeless Test: scored 164 runs, including 140 in the second innings. Bowled 23 overs without a wicket, and held one catch.
Hammond was commissioned as a Pilot Officer in the RAF after joining up in October 1939 at the age of 36. His duties were purely of an administrative capacity and it allowed him to play as much cricket as was possible. On one occasion, in Egypt, he found himself up against his old foe, Dudley Nourse. On another, stationed in South Africa, he renewed rivalries with Norman Gordon, a bowler for whom his high opinion never wavered. Cricket thrived during the war years and participation was not frowned upon as it had been in 1914, when it was deemed deeply unpatriotic to play while men were dying in the trenches. The game in England was identified as a morale booster, an entertainment and relaxation, and an effective means of raising money for war charities to boot. ‘It was realised by the Government, and by the Services, that cricket provided a healthy and restful antidote to war strain,’ Pelham Warner wrote.
Hammond excelled at one-day cricket and, in the words of the author David Foot, ‘He simply batted from memory. He seldom tried too hard – and he seldom failed. The spectators were never let down.’ For the most part, Hammond had what might be described as a comfortable war. His was not, as Howat put it, ‘a war in which he had to face the enemy with the courage of, say, Edrich or the sacrifice of Verity or Farnes’. Nonetheless, he played his part and had attained the rank of Squadron Leader before he was discharged in 1944 on medical grounds.
He headed the batting averages for the eighth successive season when full-time cricket returned in 1946, hitting 1,783 runs at 84.90 and captaining England to victory over India in three Tests. His game showed no obvious diminution in skill and he was the automatic choice to lead his country that winter in the first Ashes series for eight years, despite at 43 being the oldest man to captain an England side to Australia. Many were resistant to England touring so soon after the war, but he had no doubts and saw the venture as ‘a goodwill mission’. A combination of events, however, conspired to turn it into a sad decline and failure for Hammond: a tour too far.
England suffered a humiliating reverse in the opening Test in Brisbane, when they appeared wholly unprepared for the no-holds-barred brand of cricket played by Bradman’s Australia, and lost the second in Sydney. In England’s defence the umpiring was abysmal and the tourists, inevitably perhaps, did not receive the rub of the green. Moreover, there were grumblings in the press about Hammond’s age. His complex private life was catching up with him, and his wife had started divorce proceedings. During the tour of South Africa in 1938–39 he had met and fallen for a Durban beauty queen, Sybil Ness-Harvey, who would become his second wife. She had come to England and was homesick and lonely on her own without him; her welfare weighed heavily on his mind. The captaincy that he had once worn so lightly in South Africa rapidly became a burden: he was tactically outsmarted by Bradman, and the runs dried up. Even Bill Edrich, the staunchest of friends, found him ‘edgy, retiring and irritable’.
The third and fourth Tests were drawn and, with Australia having already retained the Ashes, Hammond left himself out of the side for the fifth. The fibrositis that had precipitated his discharge from the RAF was causing him acute pain and could only b
e quelled by aspirin. Yardley assumed the captaincy but was unable to prevent Australia from taking the series 3–0. Hammond returned to make 79 against New Zealand in a rain-effected Test in Christchurch (he was cheered all the way to the wicket), and arrived back in England to announce his retirement with immediate effect.
Aside from an ill-conceived comeback at 48 for Gloucestershire against Somerset in 1951 when – to the great sadness of players and spectators alike – he could barely lay bat on ball, that was it from a batsman who, in the words of Robertson-Glasgow, ‘enriched the game with a grace, a simplicity and a nobility that may never be seen again’. In 85 Tests he scored 7,249 runs at 58.45, with 22 centuries, and took 83 wickets; in all first-class matches there were 50,551 runs, 732 wickets and 820 catches. He became the first batsman to score 6,000 runs in Test cricket, a feat he achieved during the tour of South Africa in 1938–39 on the opening day of the rubber in Johannesburg. In 20 Tests as England captain, he won four, lost three and drew 13. He died of a heart attack in South Africa on 19 July 1965, aged 62, after moving to Durban with his second wife in 1951.
Len Hutton (1916–90)
Yorkshire
Record in the timeless Test: scored 93 runs, including 55 in the second innings. Bowled one over without a wicket, and took one catch.
Hutton’s 364 against Australia at The Oval in 1938 would have been enough to assure him cricketing immortality alone, but not content with that he went on to become England’s first regular professional captain and the man who won back the Ashes after a wait of almost 20 years. There were further significant achievements: he was the first professional elected to life membership of MCC while still playing, and the second to be knighted for his services to cricket, after Jack Hobbs. As if that was not enough, he overcame a potentially career-threatening injury sustained in 1941 while serving as a Sergeant in the Army Physical Training Corps.
He fractured his left arm when a mat slipped from under him in the gymnasium and was forced to spend eight months in hospital. He underwent three complicated bone grafts to repair the damage, and was eventually discharged from hospital with his left arm two inches shorter than the other. ‘When I saw my arm after all those plaster encasements and complete inactivity,’ he wrote, ‘it was reduced to the size of a boy’s.’ Despite months of rehabilitation, massage and remedial exercise, his return to full-time cricket with his technique unimpaired (though he had to dispense with the hook shot altogether) was testament to his supreme ability and unfailing determination. ‘In the hall of fame,’ Wisden wrote, ‘he sits at the high table with the elite.’
Hutton enjoyed a truly golden summer in 1949, scoring 3,429 runs at 68.58, with 12 centuries, and passing a thousand runs in both June and August; for England he formed a formidable opening partnership with the Lancastrian, Cyril Washbrook. His elevation to the captaincy arrived three years later, against India at Leeds, though he presumed that he was merely keeping the seat warm until someone else came along. Instead, he captained his country in another 22 Tests, winning 13, drawing six and losing only four – an outstanding record. England won back the Ashes under him at The Oval in 1953 amidst unforgettable scenes, and retained them in Australia two years later, with Frank Tyson as a lightning-quick spearhead.
Hutton was dropped only once by England – against Australia in 1948 (after receiving a thorough working over from Keith Miller and Ray Lindwall) – and did not miss another Test until his enforced retirement with chronic back pain in 1955; the problem had first surfaced on tour in South Africa in 1938–39. He was knighted in the summer of 1956. In 79 Tests he scored 6,971 runs at 56.67, including 19 centuries, and 40,140 in all first-class cricket, reaching his hundredth hundred in 619 innings. His son Richard, an all-rounder, played five Tests for England in 1971, an achievement that was said to have given Hutton senior more pleasure than anything else. He served as a Test selector in 1975–76, but suffered from poor health in later years and died in Kingston-upon-Thames, aged 74.
William John Edrich (1916–86)
Middlesex and Norfolk
Record in the timeless Test: scored 220 runs, including 219 in the second innings. Bowled 15 overs without a wicket, and held one catch.
Edrich’s was a remarkable war. He went from Pilot Officer to acting Squadron Leader in a matter of days, earned legendary status among air-crews and superiors alike in Bomber Command for his death-defying skill and bravery, and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. He flew in the daylight raid by Bristol Blenheims on the Cologne power stations, Knapsack and Quadrath, on 12 August 1941 – a mission that was described by one newspaper as ‘the RAF’s most audacious and dangerous low-level bombing raid’. The casualty rate among bomber pilots was severe and, in the attack on Cologne, 12 of the 54 Blenheims failed to return. Edrich, to his unceasing relief, cheated death more times than he cared to remember, and as a consequence always lived his life to the full. His appetite for a good night out never palled and often landed him in trouble with the cricketing authorities. The ‘profound remorse at losing so many fine friends’ also stayed with him for ever.
A fierce patriot, Edrich played his cricket with the same fearlessness and indifference to danger and, on his return to Test cricket in the ill-fated Australia tour of 1946–47, bore the brunt of Keith Miller and Ray Lindwall at their fastest, scoring 462 runs. Interestingly, after the selectors failed to pick him for the series against West Indies in 1939, he was also excluded from the England team that played India in 1946 and was by no means a unanimous selection for Australia. He became an amateur after the war, and it was during the 1946–47 tour, Wisden asserted, that ‘he showed himself indisputably as a Test player’. His crowning achievement as a cricketer came in 1947 when he hit 3,539 runs at an average of 80.43 and took 67 wickets; there were also 552 runs in four Tests against South Africa that summer, before more carousing cost him his England place again. In this particular incident, during a series against West Indies in 1950, he had to be helped to his room by the night porter and succeeded in waking up the chairman of selectors next door. His various run-ins with authority made him, in the words of Ralph Barker, ‘a controversial cricketer’.
Yet Edrich was back at the crease, unbeaten on 55, when the Ashes were reclaimed in 1953 and played his 39th and final Test against Australia at Adelaide in 1955. He scored 2,440 runs at 40 – his 219 in the timeless Test remained his highest Test score – and picked up 41 wickets. In all first-class cricket he hit 36,965 runs and took 479 wickets. After signing off at Middlesex he captained Norfolk, the county of his birth, from 1959 to 1972, eventually retiring at 56. He died after a fall at his home in Chesham, Buckinghamshire, aged 70, having attended a St George’s Day lunch; a patriot to the end. As he put it once: ‘I feel that I have been so lucky. A farmer’s boy came to Lord’s and reaped such a rich harvest.’
Leslie Ethelbert George Ames (1905–90)
Kent
Record in the timeless Test: scored 101 runs, including 84 in the first innings. Held two catches and conceded only six byes.
The imperturbable Ames was England’s first-choice wicketkeeper from 1931 to 1939 until a back injury determined that he played solely as a batsman, a role for which he was more than adept. He made his final appearance for England in the timeless Test, though there was an offer of more international cricket after the war. Hammond wanted him in his side to tour Australia in 1946–47 as a batsman but, despite holding the England captain in the highest esteem, he could not be persuaded to travel. He was an essential part of Kent’s championship side from 1927 to 1951, before a recurrence of back trouble brought his career to an abrupt close. By that time he had stockpiled 37,248 runs, made 102 hundreds, nine double-hundreds, exceeded a thousand runs a season on 17 occasions and pulled off 418 stumpings, almost apologetically, so it was said. His wicketkeeping was described by Wisden as neat and economical, with ‘no flamboyant gestures’. In South Africa in 1938–39, he conceded only one bye for every 275 balls bowled during the series, while there
were few batsmen in the world capable of hitting the ball harder or in such classical style.
In 47 Tests he scored 2,434 runs at 40.56 and struck eight centuries; he caught 74 batsmen and stumped 23. He was the first professional to be appointed a Test selector – a task he performed for eight seasons from 1950 – and was manager on three MCC tours. During the war he joined the RAF and, in an administrative capacity, rose to the rank of Squadron Leader. He died in Canterbury on 27 February 1990, aged 84.
Edward Paynter (1901–79)
Lancashire
Record in the timeless Test: scored 137 runs, hitting 62 and 75, and held two catches.
The war robbed Paynter of the last few precious years of his first-class career. He was 37 and still an England player at its outset, and almost 44 when it ended. He was a relatively late starter anyway, and didn’t score his first century for Lancashire until 1931, by which time he was 30; his Test debut followed that summer against New Zealand. He proceeded, nevertheless, to make a substantial impact. In 20 Tests he hit 1,540 runs at an average of 59.23, including double-hundreds against both Australia – he averaged a remarkable 84.42 in seven Tests against them – and South Africa. He was a brilliant fieldsman, too, despite losing the top joints to the index and middle fingers of his right hand in an accident as a youth.