Lives in Cricket No 24 - Edgar Willsher

53 Chapter Ten Captain of England Happily, Edgar’s fortieth year saw no diminution in his powers; quite the contrary. Passing a century of dismissals for the first time, he finished fifth in the first-class averages in the hot, dry summer of 1868 with 113 wickets at 9.98, 16 miserly bowling even by his standards. His strike rate was back down to 35, after hitting 47 in 1867, and his economy rate was a startling 28. 17 For the only time in his career, he completed a hat-trick in top-class cricket, appearing for the Players of the South against the Gentlemen of the South. All three victims were clean bowled, ‘a new bat being forthwith presented to him’, according to the Daily News . Far from putting his feet up, though, the end of the season saw him embark upon an adventure that was to prove more momentous even than that of 1862, and lay any lingering doubts about his reputation permanently to rest. Yet it could so easily have happened much earlier in his career. In the summer of 1859, George Parr was assembling a squad of professionals for what is now recognised as the first-ever overseas tour, to Canada and the United States in the autumn of that year. As reported by the New York Commercial Advertiser in August, Willsher’s name was included amongst such heavyweights as Caffyn, Carpenter and Wisden. In the end he had to withdraw, presumably because of the death in September of his first child, John Edgar, at the age of only three months. Edgar senior’s interest must have been aroused, because two years later, his name cropped up again as a potential tourist. Bell’s Life of 1 September 1861 reported that seven players had already signed contracts, and that five more, including Willsher, were expected to follow suit. Again, it was not to be, and Edgar had now also missed out on the first tour of Australia. Finally, George Parr considered him a certainty for his 1863 venture down under, but in the end he was replaced, without explanation, by William Clarke’s son Alfred, a 16 First-class wickets cost on average 15.07 in this year. 17 In a modern compilation based on the ACS list of first-class matches. He reached 1,000 wickets in first-class cricket in his last match of the 1868 season, though of course this was not something which was recorded or celebrated at the time. He was the sixth bowler (but the first left-armer) to reach this milestone.