Lives in Cricket No 5 - Rockley Wilson

a confident looking, fresh-faced young man, clean-shaven, hair neatly brushed and parted, looking steadily into the camera with just the suggestion of a smile about his lips. As to his cricket, he was a sound, orthodox batsman with a good defensive technique. His stance, with a pronounced bend of the right knee at the crease, was rather inelegant but he played with an impeccably straight bat. When it came to attacking strokes, he was essentially a leg-side player. In a serious match he was reluctant to take any risk at the crease but in club cricket he was more relaxed and could indulge in some dashing strokeplay. In his early years he was an early-order batsman, often opening the innings, but later in his first-class career he never aspired to be more than a tail-end batsman. His limited range of strokes in these later years is illustrated by one story about him. Playing against Surrey at The Oval, Rockley had deflected a ball to fine leg for a single and a wild return resulted in four overthrows. Emmott Robinson remarked that this was Wilson’s first four in front of the wicket since the war! It was as a bowler that Rockley Wilson made his cricketing name. He was a right-arm slow bowler who turned the ball from leg with finger spin. His variations were the ball that went straight on and occasionally, when delivered from wide of the crease, one that turned from the off. He had a low arm action but objected strongly if his action was described as round-arm – though Wisden so described it in 1914. He relied less on spin for his wickets than on his control of length, pace and flight. Especially on hard wickets, Rockley had the technique to make his slower, more flighted deliveries bounce rather higher, and with more pace, than the batsman expected. Arthur Dolphin, the Yorkshire wicketkeeper, referred to these as “Mr Wilson’s tennis balls.” Bowlers of Rockley Wilson’s particular type are not to be seen in today’s cricket, certainly at first-class level. His accuracy was legendary. His standard, he once said, was to be able, when loosened up, to pitch a ball five times out of six on an old Lord’s scorecard, which measured six by about ten inches – shades of Wilfred Rhodes The Wilson Family 12 Rockley Wilson in his thirties.