Famous Cricketers No 91 - J.C.Laker

not interested in off-spinners. Already on the County’s staff were Frank Smailes who played for England against India in1946, and Ellis Robinson, another prodigious spinner of the ball as well as a fine short-leg fieldsman. Robinson came close to Test selection before moving on to Somerset in 1950. Opportunities for Laker at Yorkshire were therefore strictly limited but it is interesting to speculate as to how the Championships of the 1950s would have turned out had Laker been playing for Yorkshire instead of Surrey. Laker joined the Catford Club whose President was Andrew Kempton, a prominent member of the Surrey County Cricket Club. Kempton recommended the young off-spinner to Surrey who invited him for a trial at Kennington Oval. Successful in this, Laker was chosen for his debut match against the Combined Services at Kennington Oval in 1946. His first wicket in a first-class match was that of the future England batsman, Don Kenyon. He took six wickets for 20 runs apiece in a Surrey win. Later in the 1946 season Laker played in two further matches match for Surrey against Hampshire and Combined Services at Kingston upon Thames. In August 1946, Surrey offered Laker a professional contract on terms of £6 a week in the winter and the same amount augmented by match fees for the summer. His career was launched. The story of Laker’s career is well known to most readers of this book but perhaps, a few highpoints need a special mention. After capturing 79 wickets in the English season of 1947, Laker was chosen to tour the West Indies with MCC in the winter of 1947/48. On his Test debut at Bridgetown, Barbados he took seven wickets for 103, still the third best analysis recorded by an English bowler on his Test Match debut. He took eighteen wickets at 30.44 apiece during the series playing in all four of the Tests so it is surprising that during the rest of his career he was to play in all the Tests in only three more series - against Australia in 1956, South Africa in 1956/57 and India in 1952. Of a possible 89 Test Matches played by England from his debut in 1947/48 to his final series against Australia in 1958/59, Laker played in only 46 games, only just over 50%. In those 46 Tests Laker scored 676 runs at an average of 14.08 with a highest score of 63 against Australia at Trent Bridge in 1948. He took 193 wickets at 21.24, taking a wicket for every 62.31 balls delivered, the best strike rate of any England spinner. It is interesting to compare this strike rate with those of Laker’s successors in the England team. F.J.Titmus averaged 98.81 balls per wicket, D.A.Allen averaged 92.59 and R.Illingworth averaged 97.81.So, why did Laker not play in more Tests? The first thing that needs to be said is that Laker had some strong rivals for the position of off-spinner in the England team. There was Roy Tattersall of Lancashire, preferred in a number of home Test Matches in the early 1950s and selected to go to Australia, albeit as a replacement, in 1950/51. More surprising was the choice of D.B.Close of Yorkshire as the first choice off-spinner. Bob Appleyard of Yorkshire was the preferred choice for the Australian tour of 1954/55. Appleyard was a fine bowler whose performances on that tour justified his selection. The same could not be said of J.E.McConnon, the Glamorgan off-spinner, who was also chosen for the tour ahead of Laker. The selection of F.J.Titmus, fine bowler though he was, ahead of Laker in three of the Tests against South Africa in 1955 is also surprising. The England selectors also had a preference for leg-spin bowlers, especially for overseas tours as the selection of R.O.Jenkins and D.V.P.Wright to tour South Africa in 1948/49, and D.V.P.Wright and W.E.Hollies for the 1950/51 Australian tour clearly indicate. Laker finally exploded the theory that off-spinners were not worth taking to Australia by topping the bowling averages on his only tour there in 1958/59. Laker’s “annus mirabilis” was, of course, 1956 when he destroyed the Australians almost single-handed at Old Trafford taking all ten wickets for 53 in their second innings and nine for 37 in the first. As was the case with the tied match at Brisbane in 1960/61 a lot of people claim to have seen 4