Famous Cricketers No 57 - W. M. Woodfull

bowling was flawless.” His main scoring shots appear to have been a “straight-bat push with the blade often angled to place the ball” and a “firm clip in front of the wicket.” The ‘unbowlable’ label is somewhat ironic in that certain bowlers dismissed him this way repeatedly. Four of his last five Test dismissals were ‘bowled Bowes’. Woodfull is best remembered as a batsman for his partnerships with Bill Ponsford. Team mates dubbed them ‘Mutt and Jeff’ after a popular Victorian vaudeville act. Less kindly they were known as the Chinese openers, ‘Billy Po and Billy Wo’. Their more popular names were the unoriginal ‘Woody’ and ‘Ponny’. They were the first Australian pair to score three century openings in a series (162, 106 and 159 in 1930). Curiously these were their only Test century opening partnerships. Together they registered 23 century partnerships in first-class cricket. Fittingly, they shared a century partnership in their own Testimonial game. This was the last first-class game for each of them. The parallels continue. Their Test averages (Ponsford 48.22, Woodfull 46.00), first-class centuries (Ponsford 47, Woodfull 49), first-class runs (Ponsford 13,819, Woodfull 13,388) and career averages (Ponsford 65.18, Woodfull 64.99) are uncannily similar. They almost played the same amount of games and had almost the same number of innings. Interestingly, the only book written about him is called Ponsford and Woodfull, a Premier Partnership . They seemed to bring out the best in each other. Pollard said “Woodfull formed with Ponsford one of the most successful opening partnerships in Australia’s cricket history.” Woodfull was a most consistent batsman throughout his career. He has never dismissed for a pair and was only dismissed three times in the 90’s. He reached a first-class century once in every five innings he played which was exactly the same ratio as Ponsford. Only Bradman amongst Australian batsmen exceeds this mark. He reached at least 50 in 44% of his innings, a higher rate than Ponsford (38%) and once again, second only to Bradman. Bill Woodfull the Captain As a captain, almost all commentators agree that Woodfull’s quiet, unassuming demeanour won him the respect and affection of both his team-mates and opponents alike. Gustard said that “although Australia has had more knowledgeable captains and ones with more forceful personalities, she has never had one more popular than Woodfull." Ray Robinson, doyen of Australian cricket writers and privy to much dressing room gossip said that “as a captain, Woodfull’s players respected him completely.” Bert Oldfield thought it was “the little things he said to us on the field that made all the difference.” Despite these comments, Woodfull is usually rated as one of Australia’s great Test cricket captains because of his restraint and diplomacy than for his on-field skills. He is considered more as an efficient captain rather than as a great one. Johnny Moyes thought this was because Woodfull as a captain sometimes made up his mind too slowly. This was evidenced by him leaving a bowler on for an over or so too long. Perhaps Woodfull did not have to be a great captain? Robinson thought he “overplayed his trump cards” (Grimmett and O’Reilly) however “when either was given a spell, you could almost hear the batsmen sigh with relief.” To balance this, “he never committed the error of leaving them off too long.” Several players thought that Woodfull’s ability to extract the best from each player enabled the team to virtually run itself. Woodfull seemed to operate on the theory that any player good enough to be playing Test cricket must know what he is doing and therefore could be trusted to get on with his own game. 6