VETERAN CRICKETER

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23850, 28 December 1940, Page 3

VETERAN CRICKETER

BRILLIANCE OF RHODES BATSMAN AND BOWLER "Wilfred "Rhodes was, on all sorts of turf, dry or "sticky." the greatest slow left-handed bowler of our period, writes Xovii;le ' tardus in the Melbourne Sporting Globe. I mean the period of those of us who are midd.eaced and can remember our cricket from, sav 19<>2 to the present day. ' *l|is career reads like a romance. He bowled himself nearly to tho top of the Encash averages during she reign of Queen \ c-toria--that is, when he was 20, m when he took 151 wickets at 14 runs each. Two years afterward his record was _•-! wickets, average 15. lie went in last for England at Kennington Oval when t.i runs were wanted for victory. He helped his fellow York-diiteman, George Hirst, to set them, ami England won by one wicket. .Tn recent years, as wo all know Ixodes opened the English innings with .Tack in mil he scored 2000 runs and took .100 wicket" Then he gave up bowling, more or less because Yorkshire now possessed another left-luinded artist in slow, spin and fliHit But no England eleven was complete without Rhodes —he was chosen for his batt'n\ft'er')l!the 19U-1S war, Yorkshire, found themselves without a young slow spinner— Drake was killed in France. And so Rhodes, in suite of his -to years, returned to his bowiin.r, and picked it up exactly where he had laid it down years aero. summers later his bowling helped to win the rubber for England at Ivennin "-ton Oval, against Australia—a quarter of i century after he had, as a mere bov, batted last for England on the same ground at the same hour of the day, England wanting 15 to win.