Roy Tattersall was an
English cricketer who played for
Lancashire and played sixteen
Tests for
England as a specialist
off spin bowler died he was 89.. He was born at
Bolton,
Lancashire,
England.
[2]
(17 August 1922 – 9 December 2011[1])
Tattersall had an unusual style, quite different from the orthodox
Jim Laker, who kept him out of a Test place for most of his career. Tattersall held his
index finger
around the seam of the ball and this allowed him to bowl a carefully
disguised away-swinger to supplement his sharp off-break. He was rather
faster than Laker, and this served to increase his penetration on the
many wet wickets of his home county. Of small account as a batsman, he
did nonetheless help
Reg Simpson in a tenth wicket stand of 74 to give England its first victory over Australia since their record win at
The Oval in 1938.
Early career
Tattersall, a late developer, began his
first-class cricket career in 1948, at a time when English bowling was weak because
World War II
had decimated their pre-war pace attack. He first played for Lancashire
in 1948 as a medium fast bowler, taking 66 Second XI wickets. He did
not establish himself until 1950 after Roberts, Price and Nutter had
left the staff and he changed to bowling mainly off-breaks, something he
developed in
Minor County cricket. That year, largely as a result of
groundsmen at
Old Trafford
deciding to eliminate watering of the pitch, Tattersall consistently
had pitches tailor-made for him and he did not disappoint, being the
leading wicket-taker in first-class cricket with 193 victims for under
14 apiece.
[2] This won him the inaugural
Cricket Writers' Club Young Cricketer of the Year award. Although he was not risked in the
Tests against a powerful
West Indian batting line-up, Tattersall was chosen as a reinforcement for the
1950–51 Ashes series
that winter. He did modestly in Australia, but bowled well enough on
the more helpful New Zealand pitches to establish himself in the Test
team for fourteen consecutive matches.
[2]
Test career
Tattersall held his place throughout the 1951 Test against
South Africa, taking 12 for 101 on his home pitch.
[2] In addition, he claimed eight for 51 for the
MCC against them. Tattersall went to India that winter, and on a "biting" pitch at
Kanpur,
he took eight wickets for 125 runs and helped England gain their only
victory of the series. However, his being used as a stock bowler
delivering 246
subcontinent overs in eight innings, affected his performances, and Tattersall was never the same bowler again.
[2] Returning home he found that
Jim Laker,
Johnny Wardle and
Roly Jenkins
were ahead of him in the selectors' eyes, despite taking over 100
wickets every year until 1957. Tattersall made only two further
appearances in Test cricket: in 1953 against
Australia and in 1954 against
Pakistan.
[2]
County cricket
Tattersall, however, bowled in excellent form for Lancashire right up to 1957; taking 100
County Championship
wickets every year except 1956, when after an irresistible start, he
unaccountably lost form. In the wet summer of 1958. he failed to reach
100 wickets for the first time since 1949. The eminent Lancashire
cricket writer, John Kay,
[3]
felt Tattersall the victim of inconsistent policy at Old Trafford. In
1956, he was left out in mid-season, a move that probably cost the
County the championship.
[4] Nonetheless, it was a surprise to see Tattersall and
Malcolm Hilton dropped at the beginning of 1959, for the leg-spinner
Tommy Greenhough. Although Tattersall was recalled at the beginning of the 1960 season, he did not do well enough to keep his place after May.
He and Hilton, however, were rewarded for their service to the county in the 1950s, with a remarkably productive
joint benefit against
Yorkshire
that was watched by over seventy four thousand spectators. Tattersall
was not re-engaged by the county for 1961, but did play for the MCC
against his former county (in Lancashire's Centenary Match) with
remarkable success, taking six for 63 in the first innings on an
unhelpful wicket.
In 1961, Tattersall
[5] endured a poor season as a professional in the Birmingham League, but was engaged by
Worcestershire for 1962. Aged over forty, Tattersall was only modestly successful for their Second XI.
[6] He played his last match in 1963.
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