Lives in Cricket No 5 - Rockley Wilson

Players match was not to prove a permanent banishment for he was again selected for the Scarborough Festival fixture in 1922. Geoffrey Wilson took over the Yorkshire captaincy from David Burton in 1922. Another Trinity College, Cambridge man, he had first appeared for Yorkshire in 1919 while still at the University and then played in a handful of games in 1921. Though he was an outstanding fielder, Geoffrey Wilson was not a good enough batsman to have held down a place in the strong Yorkshire side, but Yorkshire had need of another amateur to take over the captaincy and Geoffrey Wilson was invited to fill the bill. He could, of course, look to such sages as Wilfred Rhodes, the senior professional, and Emmott Robinson for advice as and when the need arose: stories have it that it was often the sages rather than the captain who took crucial decisions on the field of play. In the event, 1922 proved to be an excellent season for Yorkshire. They were county champions once more in what was to prove the first of four successive Championship-winning seasons, three of them with Geoffrey Wilson as captain. Rockley Wilson was again a regular member of the team in the school vacation, again appearing in eight Championship fixtures. He also played in three other first-class matches. His was a much less successful season, however, as he took only 16 wickets in the Championship, though still at an excellent average of 17.56. He finished fifth in the Yorkshire bowling averages, behind Wilfred Rhodes, George Macaulay, Roy Kilner and Abram Waddington. In all first-class matches he took 26 wickets at 15.84. In only one match did he achieve five wickets or more in an innings, taking five for 91 off 49.3 overs against Surrey at The Oval. His batting average slumped to a mere 3.50 in the County Championship, and 6.14 in all matches. However, the season was memorable for Wilson in one respect. When Geoffrey Wilson fell ill with appendicitis during the Roses match in August, the first of Rockley Wilson’s appearances in 1922 for the county, Rockley took over the captaincy. As it turned out, Geoffrey Wilson had to miss the rest of the season and Rockley Wilson captained the side in all nine of Yorkshire’s remaining fixtures. D.C.F.Burton might have been recalled in such an emergency, but Rockley was in the side, was an amateur and therefore was the obvious choice. His captaincy experience was relatively limited though, as we have seen, he had proved a capable and determined captain of Cambridge in 1902. His tactical insights Back to County Cricket 92