| Wilfred Rhodes |
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flag = Flag_of_England.svg | nationality = English | country = England | country abbrev = Eng | name = Wilfred Rhodes | picture = Wilfred_Rhodes.jpg | batting style = Right-handed batsman (RHB) | bowling style = Slow Left-arm Orthodox (SLA) | tests = 58 | test runs = 2325 | test bat avg = 30.19 | test 100s/50s = 2/11 | test top score = 179 | test balls = 8225 | test wickets = 127 | test bowl avg = 26.96 | test 5s = 6 | test 10s = 1 | test best bowling = 8/68 | test catches/stumpings = 60/0 | FCs = 1110 | FC runs = 39969 | FC bat avg = 30.81 | FC 100s/50s = 58/198 |
FC balls = 185799 | FC wickets = 4204 | FC bowl avg = 16.72 | FC 5s = 287 | FC 10s = 68 | FC best bowling = 9/24 | FC catches/stumpings = 765/0 | debut date = 1 June| debut year = 1899 | last date = 12 April | last year = 1930 | source = http://www.cricinfo.com/link_to_database/PLAYERS/ENG/H/HAMMOND_WR_01000458/ }} Wilfred Rhodes (born October 29 , 1877 , North Moor, Kirkheaton , near Huddersfield , Yorkshire ; died July 8 , 1973 , Branksome Park , Bournemouth ) was one of the greatest Cricketers of the twentieth century. Whilst his career evolved through a great many distinct stages, his record for Yorkshire and England is sufficient to place him as one of the very greatest All-round Cricketers of all time. Unusually, he batted right-handed but bowled left arm. Some remarkable achievements of his career include:
Early career - amazing bowling feats in dry summers In 1897 , Yorkshire suffered a severe blow when they could not discipline their champion Left-arm Spinner Bobby Peel and were forced to sack him. Rhodes, then a teenager, had shown great promise both as a right-handed Batsman and a left-arm spin bowler, and Yorkshire took him into their eleven for the first match of 1898. It was remarkable how the youngster, with his amazing accuracy and ability to turn the ball, developed over the following few years. In his first season Rhodes took 154 wickets - the third highest aggregate after J.T. Hearne and Tom Richardson , and easily the most by any bowler in his debut season - and was named a Wisden Cricketer Of The Year . Though he played a few good innings, his ability as a batsman was not yet "discovered" and he went in very late in the order. In 1899 , Rhodes' vicious spin, seen generally as being more vicious than Peel's, was deadly on the wet pitches of May and after the thunderstorms that occasionally punctuated the very hot and dry weather of the summer, and he was again among the leading wicket-takers. He played in his first Tests that year, (his first Test match, on June 3 , was W. G. Grace 's last) but the skilful Australian batting, led by Victor Trumper meant he met with little success. It was in 1900, when Yorkshire won the first of three consecutive County Championships, that Rhodes' amazing skill and accuracy really came to the fore. Helped early and late in the season by soft pitches, the real highlights of Rhodes' season came on the hard pitches in the middle of the season, when his skill against batsmen such as , Rhodes hit a maiden century, and his batting average was 26 - amazing for someone who went in second-last! Developing into a consummate all-rounder In 1902, Rhodes participated in probably the greatest Test series of all time against the touring Australians. Aided by a bad wicket, he took 7 for 17 in the first Test, and helped Hirst win the last Test by one wicket after a hurricane innings by Jessop. Despite taking 213 wickets for 13 each, Rhodes had set such a high standard that, helped by the wettest season of his career so far, it was thought he should have done better! This line was repeated after the equally wet summer of 1903, but that was the year Rhodes first showed the ability as a batsman noticed before he joined Yorkshire. On soft pitches in both matches with Nottinghamshire, Rhodes gave the best displays of his career so far, and as a makeshift opener, he carried his bat against the MCC. Touring Australia with the MCC in 1903/1904, Rhodes had a memorable tour. Aided by a record wet summer in Melbourne, he took 15 for 124 (despite ''eight dropped catches''), and despite still going in last, added 130 with , Rhodes regularly opened that batting, and despite being no longer the bowler he was on the rock-hard wickets of southern England that summer, he remained deadly when pitches helped him despite trying to develop a higher flight. Rhodes toured Australia in 1907/1908, but it was a disappointing tour in often appallingly hot weather, especially as a bowler. Opening the batting for England After a moderate season in 1908, Rhodes enjoyed perhaps his greatest ever year in 1909. Not only did he bowl as well as ever, he was only twenty runs shy of being the leading run-getter of the season - an amazing advance for someone who once went in last or second last! His aggregate of 2094 runs was a remarkably display of skill and tenacity on a succession of rain-affected pitches. With England's batting in a crisis, Rhodes went in first wicket down in the last Test and made 66 and 54, and opened with on an exceptionally bad pitch - 1910 was disappointing, but in 1911 Rhodes batted so well he reached his highest aggregate and was chosen for the tour of Australia as a regular opening batsman. Though his bowling failed so much that ''he did not take a wicket in the Tests'', his partnerships with Hobbs were invariably superb both in this series and the 1912 Triangular Tournament. At the MCG , Rhodes batted seven hours for a wonderfully careful 179, whilst at Lord's and The Oval the following year the pair's skill on wet pitches helped established England's clear superiority over Australia. Rhodes maintained his form until The War halted county cricket, even showing some traces of his old form as a bowler in 1914 with 118 wickets for 18 each. Irrepressible in county cricket - hopeless in Australia With Yorkshire in desperate need of bowling in 1919 after the tragic deaths of Major Booth and Alonzo Drake , Rhodes moved down the batting order (with Herbert Sutcliffe and Percy Holmes forming an amazing partnership as openers) to concentrate once more on bowling. He was so successful in county cricket that he averaged under 13 for the next five years and his average in 1923 was ''the lowest for any bowler between 1895 and 1957''. At the same time, Rhodes maintained his batting so well that by the end of 1924 he had completed a thousand runs for eighteen consecutive years. With George Macaulay , Abe Waddington and Roy Kilner , Yorkshire had a bowling combination that, even on good wickets, tied opposing batsmen down so well that most failed completely, whilst on wickets at all helpful, it was invariably unplayable. In his forties, Rhodes (like J.T. Hearne ) had the most marvellous accuracy, but it was always thought he had lost a lot of the spin of the period from 1898 to 1902. Yet, in Australia in 1920/1921 Rhodes' bowling was remarkably innocuous. He took only four wickets for ''61 each'' in the Tests! This ineffectiveness characterised many county bowlers of the time, and shows how Rhodes' average reflects the fact that so many county sides were first-class only in name during the period - largely because they had not the money to attract the professionals the top counties could, and top amateurs were almost never able to play. His batting showed severe faults against Fast Bowling during 1921, so that, despite his remarkable county record, he was left out of the Tests after the first. Last days as a player In 1925, Rhodes was required so little as a bowler that he only took 57 wickets, but, despite the decline of ''all'' Yorkshire's other bowlers the following year, Rhodes, incredibly at the age of ''forty-eight'', bowled so well that he headed the first-class averages with several remarkable performances, notably 14 for 77 against Somerset at Dewsbury and 7 for 116 against Lancashire on a pitch that defeated all other bowlers. With his batting continuing at its former level, Rhodes was recalled for the last Test at the Oval, and bowled so well that he took six wickets for 79 runs and gave England The Ashes for the first time since 1912. In 1927, a sign of Rhodes' age was seen with his aggregate of runs halving - he did not reach fifty in the Championship - and his bowling falling from an aveage of 13 to one of 20. However, his amazing accuracy - which only grew by age - still made him deadly on helpful wickets despite loss of spin, and in 1928 Rhodes was once again Yorkshire's leading bowler. Early the following year Rhodes took an amazing 9 for 39 on a sticky Leyton wicket, during which he took his 4000th first-class wicket - a feat now ''impossible'' to equal. He also achieved the amazing analysis of 35 over, 29 maidens, 11 runs, no wickets at Trent Bridge in July that year - in a game left without a first innings result after three full days. In that game Rhodes showed a glimpse of his old skill as a batsman and helped Percy Holmes play ''the longest innings in County Championship history''. That winter, Rhodes played in several "Tests" (then called by the more appropriate title of '''Representative Matches''' because the team was equivalent to modern "England A") in the West Indies and became the oldest Test player ever at over ''fifty-two years'' (being 52 years and 165 days at the end of the last match on April 12 , 1930 ). Retirement In 1930, Rhodes played in the early matches with only moderate success either with bat or ball, and with Hedley Verity coming into the team in July and heading the first-class bowling averages, he was in and out of Yorkshire side and announced he would retire at the end of the year. His last first-class match was for H.D.G. Leverson Gower's XI against the Australians on September 10 to 12 1930. He finished his career with an excellent performance of five for 95 against a strong batting side. After 1930, he became cricket coach at Harrow School until World War II . He was Blind by 1945 , but continued to attend cricket matches regularly, claiming to be able to follow everything from the sounds. Appropriately, he died during a Test match (against New Zealand) being played at his favourite ground of Headingley . Career summary Few cricketers have performed consistently for so long. This goes far to explaining his unsurpassed career aggregates of wickers and doubles. His durability is emphasised by his status as the oldest ever Test player. He is one of only four people (together with W. G. Grace , Frank Woolley and George Hirst ) to score 30,000 runs and take 2,000 wickets in a career. He also took 765 catches, the seventh highest total ever. Only he and Hirst have scored 20,000 runs and taken 2,000 wickets in the County Championship. He played in a total of 58 Test matches, taking 127 wickets. His stand of 323 with Sir Jack Hobbs at Melbourne in 1911 is still the highest stand for England for the first wicket in an Ashes Series Test, and his stand of 130 with Tip Foster at Sydney in 1903 is still the highest for England for the last wicket in any Test match, proof of his ability to bat as an opener and a tail-ender. External links |