100 years ago

Having been in the market for old Wisdens a lot lately – though only to improve issues where my extant copy is poor – it has long occurred to me that today marks the centenary of a critical death in the cricket world:

Colin Blythe, who died 100 years ago in World War I, was one of the greatest of spin bowlers and a great matchwinner and turnstile asset for Kent

Just as repetitive (or perhaps more accurately well-remembered and recited by myself) as the false rhyme “Mold bowled” (he actually threw) was in Wisdens from 1890 to 1902 is the phrase “Blythe bowled superbly” in Wisdens from 1901 to 1915. Colin Blythe’s left-arm spin bowling took over 2,500 wickets between 1899 and 1914, making him the twelfth-highest first-class wicket-taker, and his 70 ten wicket match returns is the fifth most of any bowler. Blythe’s vicious spin made him deadly on sticky or crumbled wickets, but with his deceptive flight and variations of pace he was in the 1900s frequently very effective on firm turf, especially with Arthur Fielder’s pace providing a sharp contrast at the other end. His resourcefulness was such that he enjoyed bowling to hard-hitting batsmen.

Blythe was over his decade opposed to Jack Hobbs probably that batsman’s greatest foe over his whole career. Hobbs averaged only 32.63 in innings opposed to Blythe, nineteen runs less than for his whole first-class career. In seventeen of thirty-six innings, Blythe got Hobbs out, and he made Hobbs watchful on the best of pitches.

On 1 June, 1907, Blythe achieved the best ever County Championship bowling analysis, when in less than three hours actual play he took seventeen wickets for forty-eight runs against Northamptonshire. However, the merits of this performance are easily called into question since the pitch was extremely slow and took extremely rapid spin quite unlike anything seen on today’s covered pitches. Moreover, Northamptonshire that year:

1. averaged just 13.62 runs per wicket over twenty-one matches
• to be exact the figures were 4,836 runs scored for 355 wickets lost
2. never totalled over 264 in one innings
3. never had any batsman play an individual innings higher than 81
4. were dismissed on a sticky wicket by George Dennett for twelve runs all out ten days later

Nonetheless, I will give the full score of the game to just demonstrate what happened. Not a ball was bowled on the scheduled second day of May 31, and half the play was lost due to rain and wet ground on scheduled opening day May 30:

Kent:

F.E. Woolley b Driffield................26
H.T.W. Hardinge c Cox b East............73
James Seymour b Wells...................37
Mr. K.L. Hutchings b Driffield..........52
Mr. A.P. Day c Kingston b East..........23
*Mr. E.W. Dillon b East................. 4
E. Humphreys c Pool b Driffield......... 0
†F.H. Huish not out.....................19
W.J. Fairservice b East................. 9
C. Blythe c Vials b Driffield........... 6
A. Fielder b East....................... 1
Byes 2, leg-byes 1, no-balls 1.......... 4
TOTAL..................................254

Bowling: G.J. Thompson 15—1—76—0; East 33.2—6—77—5; Wells 6—1—34—1; Driffield 22—9—50—4; Cox 5—1—13—0

Northamptonshire:

†W.A. Buswell st Huish b Blythe......... 0 — c Woolley b Blythe............ 7
M. Cox st Huish b Blythe................ 0 — st Huish b Blythe.............12
Mr. C.J.T. Pool c Fielder b Blythe...... 0 — st Huish b Blythe............. 5
Mr. W.H. Kingston lbw, b Blythe......... 2 — lbw, b Blythe................. 0
G.J. Thompson b Blythe.................. 0 — c Hardinge b Blythe........... 1
W. East c Huish b Blythe................ 0 — c Huish b Fairservice......... 0
Mr. E.M. Crosse c Fairservice b Blythe.. 0 — c Hardinge b Blythe........... 2
Mr. A.R. Thompson c Seymour b Blythe....10 — c Humphreys b Blythe.......... 7
*Mr. G.A.T. Vials not out...............33 — b Fairservice................. 1
W. Wells c Humphreys b Blythe........... 0 — b Humphreys................... 0
Mr. L.T. Driffield b Blythe.............12 — not out....................... 1
Byes 1, leg-byes 2...................... 3 — Byes.......................... 3
TOTAL...................................60 — TOTAL.........................39

Bowling: First Innings — Blythe 16—7—30—10; Fairservice 12—5—17—0; Fielder 3—0—10—0 Second Innings — Blythe 15.1—7—18—7; Fairservice 9—3—15—2; Humphreys 6—3—3—1

That same year, Blythe took fifteen for 99 against South Africa on a wet pitch at Headingley – given the difference in batting strength likely a greater feat than his Northampton record from fifty days previously. It was 1908 and 1909, however, that saw Blythe at his absolute peak – he took 412 wickets in those two seasons, and carried a substantial burden on hard pitches with Fielder frequently unsound. In the 1910s, Blythe was not so good as before on dry pitches – the fast ball became more difficult with age – but so deadly was he on the many rain-damaged pitches that he headed the averages every year from 1912 to 1914.

In these early 1910s, Blythe was also almost certainly a critical factor in making Kent one of the few counties able to return profits year after year. For contrast, but for wartime cost reductions and the postwar boom Northamptonshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire – and very likely other counties like Derbyshire and Somerset – would have folded before the 1910s ended.

Whilst other factors like:

1. Kent’s proximity to:
1. London industrial patronage that allowed Kent – unlike most counties in southwest England – to maintain a significant professional staff
2. a large body of cricket supporters in a very densely populated countryside
3. a large body of wealthy businessmen and professionals who under the existing low-tax regime could afford time to develop the skills for top-class cricket and play it
2. less rainy, hotter and sunnier summer weather than the wealthy northern counties of Yorkshire and Lancashire

certainly contributed, the presence of so resourceful and attacking a spin bowler was most probably a major spectator asset, and a larger asset than could be perceived from popularity with Kent supporters. The clearest conclusion from studying first-class cricket crowd figures is that attacking spin bowling – not attacking batting – constitutes the essential requirement for first-class cricket to pay its way without subsidies from limited-overs forms of the game, or from wealthy patrons.