Lives in Cricket No 9 - JH King

Chapter Thirteen His Place in Leicestershire’s Annals John King’s final figures, in 502 matches for his native county, were: in batting 896 innings, 64 times not out, 22,618 runs, a highest score of 227* and an average of 27.19, with 32 centuries and 115 fifties; in bowling he took 1,100 wickets for 27,780 runs at an average of 25.25 with a best return of eight for 17, dismissing five or more batsmen in an innings 64 times and ten or more in a match ten times; and in fielding, although away from the wicket much in his early days, he held 308 catches. He is the only Leicestershire player to have participated in matches against all the other 19 counties to have played first-class matches, since, in addition to representing his county in first-class matches against both London County and the other 16 members of the Championship during his career, he played in non-first-class matches once for MCC against Cambridgeshire, scoring a century, and once for Leicestershire against Durham. Without possibility of argument he is the finest and most prolific left-handed all-rounder that was ever produced by or represented Leicestershire. The Australian Jack Walsh may have been a better, and certainly was a more exciting, bowler, but his batting, though often extremely entertaining, cannot be compared with that of his predecessor; the Surrey-born Tony Lock, unarguably a superior bowler, was vastly inferior as a batsman (right-handed, of course) and played for Leicestershire for only three seasons. At the time of his retirement King had played more matches and scored more runs, and had more thousand-run seasons in all first-class matches (14: he narrowly missed the target on two further occasions by 9 and 36 runs) than any other player for the county: and was overtaken by Ewart Astill for most wickets only after his final dismissal and when he had but three matches to play and two overs to bowl. He was second to C.J.B.Wood for most centuries (32) and fifties (115 excluding centuries), second to Astill for 5-wicket innings (64) and 10-wicket matches (10), second equal after Wood for thousand-run seasons (10) and to Whitehead for 123