Famous Cricketers No 82 - H.E. 'Tom' Dollery

sending telegrams behind his back direct to Jeanne, but he still wouldn’t be persuaded to change his mind. The Championship success of 1951 was undoubtedly the highlight of Tom Dollery’s career, much of it down to his captaincy as a professional of an all-professional team. There are constant claims that he was the first professional appointed to lead a county, nonsense of course, professionals had been appointed official captains way back in the nineteenth century. In the immediate years before his appointment in 1949, Les Berry had captained neighbours Leicestershire for the three seasons 1946-48 for instance. The point was that Dollery was the first professional to break the mould. Before him most of the professional captains had been found wanting in some way or other; they were either reluctant stand-ins, their form suffered, they lacked the social graces, they were too close to and didn’t command the respect of their fellow men or they didn’t have the full backing of the Committee. Once the Warwickshire Committee had got used to the idea of a professional as captain, Dollery met all the other criteria with flying colours. It must be remembered how much prejudice there was against a professional leading a county fifty years ago. Even when he was asked to cover for R.H.Maudsley in 1948, he was never appointed Joint-Captain, the Committee minutes clearly state that he was to be stand-in captain until Maudsley was available and he would then revert to Joint Senior Professional of the side with Hollies. The Warwickshire record books should not record two captains for that season. Even when he was offered the captaincy in 1949 he was asked to consider a “sinecure” job so that he could revert to amateur status, and when to his eternal credit he refused, he was then asked to change separately from his fellow pro’s! Ray Hitchcock remarked that Tom Dollery “became a very important figure at Edgbaston” after he was made captain; he got on well with Leslie Deakins, the Secretary, and usually got his own way on issues whenever he really wanted to. Dollery’s merits as a captain were primarily tactical; his reading of a game situation was uncanny, as Jack Bannister says he could be way ahead in his thinking, and his reading of a pitch was second to none. He time and again made declarations that were timed to the minute, calculating that the pitch would deteriorate in about an hour and a half’s time say, or that it would dry out at a certain time. He never let games drift, always thinking positively; he never forgot the paying customers either, always striving for a result if possible, and he was a staunch advocate of “brighter” cricket, or as he liked to call it “positive” cricket. It is a pity limited overs cricket wasn’t played in his time, he would have revelled in the tactical aspects of this form of the game. As for his man-management skills, his personality made him slightly reserved and aloof; he was never really one of the “lads” as they would say nowadays and he never consulted his team over decisions, but he commanded the utmost respect from them, both as a man and for his tactical awareness and playing ability. His batting before the war, as stated earlier, was somewhat carefree and based on the front foot and the off-side, which led to inconsistency. After the war and his shoulder problems, he opened up his stance slightly and became predominantly an on-side player, particularly suited to the off-spin and in-swing that came more and more into vogue then. He could still play beautiful flowing off-drives and cuts but most of his runs were scored to leg by hooks, pulls and sweeps. He became the ideal number five or six, being able to suit his game to attack or defence according to the state of the game; in fact he sacrificed a lot of runs and spoiled his average by playing strictly for the needs of the side in the middle and lower order of an innings. His batting did have its eccentricities, in particular his penchant for the “dab” shot at a slow ball just outside off stump; this cost him his wicket so often in 1947 that he had to cut it out. Another oddity, particularly when out of form, was his habit of playing forward in front of his pads with his feet anchored to the crease, rather than take his front foot to the pitch of the ball. But overall his batting was based on sound principles, allied to a natural athlete’s ball playing skills and keen eyesight. Before the war he was a superb cover point with a deadly throw, but after his shoulder injury he developed into a reliable second or third slip, and as he proved in 1947 he was perfectly at home 9