Famous Cricketers No 65 - Len Hutton

Bowling O M R W BB Ave 5i 10m Test matches (6-ball) 6 0 43 0 - - - - Career (6-ball) 1271.5 252 } 5088 172 6-76 29.58 4 1 (8-ball) 264.7 40 1954 In what was a miserably cold, wet summer Len Hutton failed for the first time since 1935 to score 1,000 runs in a full English season. The hardships and stresses of the West Indies tour had taken their toll of him and he was exhausted mentally and physically. On medical advice he played no cricket at all between June 23rd and July 17th. besides missing several other matches. The visitors were Pakistan, making their first-ever Test tour of England. He shared the captaincy of the Test side with David Sheppard as a result of being unfit for the second and third games of the four-Test series. As England were due to tour Australia and New Zealand in the following winter in a bid to retain the Ashes, there was much speculation as to which one of them would be the captain. In spite of Hutton’s fine record, there were still many in influential positions who favoured a candidate with Sheppard’s public school and Cambridge University background. Both men behaved with great dignity whilst the arguments swirled around them until in the end Hutton was chosen. It was his worst-ever Test series with only 19 runs in three innings and he was also in charge when Pakistan drew the series in the final game at the Oval against an England side which made experimental choices with Australia in mind. There was no Alec Bedser, whilst Fazal Mahmood, Pakistan’s equivalent, took twelve inexpensive wickets in the match, including that of the England captain in each innings. All was not doom and gloom, however, such as in the Yorkshire match with the Combined Services when his 163 was described thus: “For three and a quarter hours Hutton gave of his best. Most of his twenty-nine fours resulted from drives through the covers.” Against Nottinghamshire at Bradford: “…he played a delightful and faultless innings (149*) in the only four and a quarter hours possible in the match.” He had the pleasure early in the season of captaining Yorkshire to victories against Gloucestershire and Hampshire in Norman Yardley’s absence. His own contributions with the bat were crucial in fairly low-scoring games. Excusing himself from the final games in the Scarborough Festival, so productive for him in past years, he concentrated on reaching maximum fitness for the strenuous tour to come “Down Under”. Own Team O M R W Opp Ct Total Total 465. Yorkshire v MCC, Lord’s, May (1), (3), 4 (Match drawn) b W.S.Surridge 1 62-2 163 466. Yorkshire v Oxford University, The Parks, May (5), 6, 7 (Match drawn) c J.P.Fellows-Smith b D.K.Fasken 21 293-4d 58 239 467. Yorkshire v Gloucestershire, Bristol, May 8, 10, 11 (Yorkshire won by 80 runs) b T.W.Graveney 58 281 234 not out 42 171-9d 138 468. Yorkshire v Hampshire, Bradford, May 15, 17 (Yorkshire won by 228 runs) b V.H.D.Cannings 63 195 72 c R.A.Dare b D.Shackleton 27 194-8d 89 469. Yorkshire v Cambridge University, Fenner’s, May 19, 20, (21) (Match drawn) st M.E.L.Melluish b G.Goonesena 8 269-9 274 1 470. Yorkshire v Warwickshire, Headingley, May 22, 24, 25 (Match drawn) c F.C.Gardner b J.D.Bannister 10 111 281-6d 58