Famous Cricketers No 45 - Hedley Verity

Postscript - Cricketing Hero A cricketing hero usually implies a player whose performances, personality and style are such that to a follower of the game he is a figure of inspiration. He is the player, if a current one, whose scores or bowling figures are immediately scrutinised in the morning paper, even before finding out the overall state of the game in progress. Hero worship is a very personal emotion and one man’s hero can be a matter of indifference to his neighbour. In cricket, however, perhaps more than in any other sport, one does not necessarily have to have seen one’s heroes in action. Such is the amount of literature on the game that one’s imagination can be fired by reading of past exploits and the pens of writers such as Cardus and Robertson-Glasgow bring to life great players of the past. How easy it is for example to see Frank Woolley batting in the sentence “There is all summer in a stroke by Woolley” or to witness the majestic MacLaren “dismiss the ball from his presence”. Hedley Verity is one such hero to many people who never saw him, not only because he was a great cricketer, which can easily be deduced from his record, but also because of his demeanour and gentlemanly character which is confirmed by all who met him. He was a superb practitioner with a classical action whose powers of spin, flight and length made him one of the greatest bowlers of all time and a most worthy successor to the mighty Wilfred Rhodes as Yorkshire and England’s premier left-arm spinner. In spite of his great success, he remained an essentially modest man, utterly reliable on and off the field and a model professional for youngsters to copy - Charlie Barnett and Len Hutton were particularly grateful to him for his advice and support. A wonderful team man without a trace of the prima donna, he was greatly appreciated by all his captains for his personality almost as much as for his skill. In the case of Hedley Verity, however, the expression “cricketing hero” has a far greater significance than that gained merely on the cricket field. On far more serious fields he fully earned the accolade of hero. During the M.C.C. tour of India in 1933/34 he became friendly with Lt. Col. Shaw, C.O. of the Green Howards, who was serving out there. At the time of the Munich crisis in 1938 he met him again and asked for advice as to what he should do in time of war. The colonel gave him some military text-books and pamphlets to read, the lessons of which were rapidly assimilated by the ever-conscientious Verity. In late 1939 he was commissioned in the Green Howards with Shaw as his commanding officer. He became a very popular officer because of his care and concern for his men. He served some time in Northern Ireland, where his cricketing skills were much utilised, before being posted to India. From there he was sent in turn to Persia, Egypt and Syria before preparing for the invasion of Sicily. On July 20th 1943, the Green Howards made their attack on the Catania Plain, but Captain Verity’s company was seriously held up by crack German troops in a farm-house. Leading his men into the battle he was hit in the chest and seriously wounded. He was taken prisoner before being transferred to the German then Italian military hospital at Caserta where he was given excellent treatment and was operated on by an Italian surgeon. However, on July 31st he died and was given full military honours at his funeral. Thus sacrificing his life for his country he died, a true “cricketing hero” in every sense. On September 3rd, 1944, a memorial match took place at Roundhay Park, Leeds, with the proceeds going to the endowment of a Hedley Verity bed at Leeds Infirmary. The sides were led by Wally 58