Famous Cricketers No 66 - Wilfred Rhodes

Albert Cordingley, were called in to join the party for the opening match of the 1898 season against the M.C.C. & Ground at Lord’s. The story goes that Hawke, the Yorkshire captain, asked F.S.Jackson to take the two spinners to the nets, Jackson returning to recommend that Rhodes should play. Hawke later denied this, saying that Rhodes was always first choice. There is some suggestion that Yorkshire planned to play Cordingley in the next match versus Somerset at Bath. Rhodes took six wickets against a strong M.C.C. side, Cordingley was called home because of his mother’s illness so Rhodes stayed in the side at Bath where, on a drying turf, he took 13 wickets for 24 and never looked back. The unlucky Cordingley eventually played for Sussex and settled into club cricket on the south coast where he is still fondly remembered. If Wilfred was the greatest bowler of his time he was also no mean batsmen. He rose up the ranks from no 11 to no 1 for both Yorkshire and England and still holds the record, with Sir Jack Hobbs, for an opening partnership against Australia of 323 at Melbourne in 1911/12, he making 179 runs. He was no stylist, but a severely practical right-hander of sound defensive technique and endless patience. As Peter Thomas put it, Rhodes was a Test bowler who became a Test batsman and then, after the Great War, became a Test bowler again to fill the gaps. He did the double of 1000 runs and a 100 wickets in 16 of his 29 seasons, he played for England for more than 30 years, a record span, and in 1900 took 240 wickets for Yorkshire alone. His later years were afflicted by blindness and there is a story of his being led into Headingley just after the last war, by his daughter, the crowd rising silently in tribute when word went round that the old man in the suit, shuffling along with his stick, his arm held, was Wilfred Rhodes. Cardus was to later write that a phrase he used in his essay “The Legendary Rhodes” was far too extravagant. Wilfred’s career was compared with the ‘surge and thunder of Odyssey’. It’s an intriguing thought:- had Homer been a cricket writer what would he have made of this epic career. 5