The Cricket Statistician No 195

51 ACS Publications Bill Bestwick: Rough Diamond By Mick Pope, ACS Publishing, paperback, pp216, £16 The England of nowadays is a country that would be unrecognisable by a time traveller from those days, who were so familiar with massive differences in social and financial status, for a start, that were yawning chasms between people who all called themselves English. Even in cricket the amateur university graduate and the rough professional from the coal mines, like Bestwick, must have been virtual foreigners to each other, except that they spoke the same language – up to a point! Similarly the comparatively wealthy professional cricketers of today, many of whom jet off to the IPL, can have little or no conception of the tough life of an ordinary county pro of 100 years ago or more. And obviously the game itself has undergone revolutionary changes in many ways. Mr Pope does a wonderful job of bringing to life the sort of society that Bestwick was born into and helped to shape him into the man he was. It was an era for millions of near-poverty, huge families, cramped houses without amenities and condemnation to a life of toil down the pit or a life of drudgery as housewife and harassed mother. It should make us all thankful for our blessings today. By most accounts Bestwick was a big-hearted, cheerful, sociable, popular extravert who had a great weakness for alcohol – and, remarkable to learn, apparently never gave the umpires any problems on the field of play. He was obviously badly affected by his wife’s early death, followed by the manslaughter incident, about which the full truth can never be uncovered, even by Mr Pope, who has covered it as thoroughly as possible. Derbyshire found him so uncontrollable that after the 1909 season they dispensed with his services, and he went into productive life in the leagues, including those in South Wales. He might have qualified to play for Glamorgan, but after the First World War Derbyshire were in such dire straits for good players that they called him back and were prepared to turn a blind eye, as far as was possible, to his lapses because he was so indispensable as a bowler. He was the chariots and horsemen of the Derbyshire attack, and in their 1920 season without him, lured back to league cricket, they suffered surely the most disastrous season ever suffered by any county. Bestwick was persuaded to return, had his best season in 1921, and Derbyshire were a respectable county again, if not a strong one. The book is a great account of his cricket, his escapades and his character. They don’t make cricketers like him any more. What would he think of the modern fast bowler who feels hard done-by when he has to bowl 20 overs in a day – Bestwick frequently bowled more than that before lunch without a break – and maintain an exhausting modern over rate of 15 or 16 overs in an hour as against approximately 24 back then? Perhaps he would have colourfully consigned them to work a few days down the pit. He was a bowler of enormous stamina, great pace in his young days, great accuracy and variety of pace and flight, a seamer rather than a swing bowler.