Famous Cricketers No 58 - Trevor Bailey

TREVOR EDWARD BAILEY Trevor Edward Bailey was born on 3rd December 1923 at Westcliff-on-Sea in Essex, the son of a middle ranking civil servant with the Admiralty in London. He had an elder brother, Basil, who was eleven years old when Trevor was born and was to be his companion and opponent in his early cricketing games. In his book The Greatest of My Time , Bailey states that cricket had been one of the main interests of his life from the age of three. His boyhood hero was the England fast bowler Harold Larwood. His early cricket was played on the mud flats of Westcliff-on-Sea, and he got further practice by inventing his own game of hitting rebounds off the wall in his back garden when he could not persuade his father or elder brother to play with him. At the age of seven Bailey was sent to Alleyn Court Preparatory School in Westcliff-on-Sea where the joint headmaster was Denys Wilcox, the former Cambridge University and Essex player. Wilcox taught him the twin virtues of playing with a straight bat and bowling a good length and Bailey learned quickly, earning his 1st XI colours at the age of nine in competition with thirteen-year-olds. By the time he left school after five years in the XI he had scored more than 1,100 runs in inter-school matches at an average of 138 and taken 52 wickets at around 7 apiece. From Alleyn Court Bailey went on to attend Dulwich College where he received more good advice and coaching from C.S.Marriott, the former Kent and England leg-spinner. His experience against Marriott in the nets at Dulwich made him a good player of leg-spin bowling, a fact he amply demonstrated in 1953 when he batted for something like five hours against Australian “leggies” Richie Benaud and Doug Ring to help save a Test Match for England at Lord’s. Bailey was selected for Dulwich 1st XI at the age of fourteen initially as a quick bowler. He played for them for five seasons, captaining the team in his last season. His batting developed to such an extent that he headed both batting and bowling averages in 1940 and in 1941 he averaged more than 121 runs per innings. In 1942, his last year at Dulwich, he scored 635 runs at an average of more than 50 and took 66 wickets at 6.17. His performances were being noted and he gained selection for a number of representative games including captaining The Rest against Lord’s Schools when he made 49 runs and took 4 wickets for 20 in Lord’s Schools first innings. He was also chosen to play for a Combined Middlesex and Essex side against Surrey and Kent and, before a Bank Holiday crowd of 22,000, took three wickets in his first over, two of them clean bowled. On leaving Dulwich, Bailey enlisted in the Royal Marines and he rose to the rank of Lieutenant before demobilisation in 1946. He did not play much cricket during this period - for much of this period there was a war on - but he did appear in one day games for England against the Dominions and West Indies in 1943, and against Australia and The Dominions in 1944. He also took part in Services matches. In 1945 he appeared in his opening first-class match for the Under 33’s against the Over 33’s at Lord’s in September scoring 20 in his only innings and taking two wickets for 103. In 1946 he was demobilised and made his first appearance for Essex against Derbyshire, opening both batting and bowling. That season he scored 318 runs for Essex with a highest score of 97 not out against Worcestershire, and took 31 wickets. The following year, (1947), he embarked on a degree course at Cambridge University, obtaining his cricket Blue against Oxford at Lord’s and scoring the first two of his twenty eight centuries, against Yorkshire and Gloucestershire. After term Bailey appeared in his first Gentlemen v Players match and scored 630 runs for Essex including the highest score of his career, 205, against Sussex at Eastbourne. He also achieved the first ten-wicket haul of his career, five in each innings against Derbyshire at Derby. Trevor Bailey is known throughout the cricketing world as “The Boil”, a nickname that originated from a visit to Switzerland by the Cambridge University soccer team in the winter of 1947/48. The Swiss announcer was having difficulty pronouncing the names of the Cambridge team and announced 3