![]() ![]() And he bowled to his field with the precision of high mathematics. "Best ball on a `sticky' pitch is a spinnin' half-volley," such was his doctrine. At the end of his career he proudly maintained that "Ah were never hooked and Ah were never cut," a pardonable exaggeration considering the proportion of truth in it. Rhodes really was a slow bowler, not quick and low flight to the pitch, after Lock's manner. In rainy weather, c Tunnicliffe b Rhodes was familiar proof that Wilfred was at work on a sticky pitch, for Tunnicliffe was the best slip fielder of the century, a long giant with a reach into infinity. ![]() David Denton had safe hands at long-on and the score-sheets of the period repeated day by day the rubric - c Denton b Rhodes. Batsmen of Rhodes's heyday frequently succumbed to his bait for a catch in the deepfield. He could go on for hours the rhythm of his action was in its easy rotation, hypnotic, lulling his victims to the tranced state in which he could work his will, make them perform strokes contrary to their reason and intention. He was economical in action, a few short strides, then a beautifully balanced sideways swing of the body, the arm loose and making a lovely arch. He prevailed by length, variations of flight, but chiefly by unceasing accuracy of pitch, always demanding close attention from the batsman, the curving arc through the air, the ball dropping on the same spot over by over, yet not on quite the same spot, each over in collusion with the rest, every ball a decoy, some balls apparently guileless, some artfully masked - and one of them, sooner or later, the master ball. Rhodes could not turn the ball on the Australian grounds of half a century ago. It was on this occasion that Trumper, the most brilliant of all batsmen, alive or dead, made his famous remark to Rhodes - "for God's sake, Wilfred, give me a minute's rest." Rhodes bowled 48 overs for 94 runs, five wickets. At Sydney, in December 1903, on the shirt-fronted polished Bulli soil pitches of that distant halcyon day for batsmen, Australia scored 485, and the might of Australia's champions commanded the crease - Trumper, Hill, Duff, Armstrong, Gregory. He had probably lost by then much of his old quick vitally fingered spin: but as he explained to me: "If batsmen thinks as I'm spinnin' them, then I am" - a remark metaphysical, maybe, but to the point. On this, his last appearance for England, Rhodes took the wickets of Woodfull, Ponsford, Richardson (twice), Collins, and Bardsley for 79 runs. Twenty-four years afterwards, Rhodes in his forty-ninth year was recalled to the England XI and was one of the main causes of Australia's defeat and England's emergence from years in the wilderness. ![]() In 1902 he had gone in last for England at The Kennington Oval when 15 runs were wanted to beat Australia George Hirst, with whom he always opened Yorkshire's attack, was holding the wicket at the other end. He headed the bowling averages of 1919, 164 wickets, average 14.42 in 1048 overs. In 1919 Yorkshire needed again the spin and flight of Rhodes, so he picked up his bowling arts exactly where years before he had laid them down, picked them up as though he had not lost touch for a moment. But then the war came, reducing the Yorkshire attack. In the Australian rubber of 1911-12 he contributed only 18 overs. But at the season's end he had established himself as the greatest slow left-hand bowler in England with 154 wickets, average 14.60.ĭuring the period in which Rhodes and Hobbs opened every England innings by prescriptive right, Rhodes put aside his bowling. In the first innings he accounted for Trott and Chatteron in the second, Trott, Chatteron, CP Foley, and the Hon JR Tufton - six wickets for 63, a modest beginning, true. He was not 21 years old when he first bowled for Yorkshire in a match against MCC at Lord's. ![]() His career is already legendary it does indeed read like a fairy tale. Eight years afterwards he went in first for England at Melbourne, and against Australia he was the partner of Hobbs in the record first-wicket stand of 323. In his first Test match he was last in the batting order, and at Sydney in the 1903-04 rubber he took part in the most persistent and prolific Test match last-wicket partnership to this day he helped RE Foster to add 130 for the tenth wicket, his share 40 not out. When he was not playing for Yorkshire, in his spare time, so to say, he played for England and amassed 2,000 runs, average 30, and took 127 wickets, at the cost of 26.96 apiece. For Yorkshire he scored more than 30,000 runs, averaging 30 an innings for Yorkshire he took 3,597 wickets at 16 runs each. Wilfred Rhodes was Yorkshire cricket personified in the great period of the county's domination, shrewd, dour, but quick to seize an opportunity. ![]()
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