Master of the slower ball,Don Bradman said that deadly Hedley was the only bowler to have perplexed and out played him.His left arm occasionals bowled him into the record books-ten for ten,a first class record that still stands,i’ll have to check Wisden to see if fourteen wickets in a match is still there.He was born and bred in Headingley,the ‘spoons local to the Leeds Arena is now named after him..
6 March 2015
peter mcornithologist
@ Dirk. Am I right in believing that Hedley took Bradmans wicket more often than anyone else? Also ,do you think the term Hedley Verityesque is nothing short of magnificent?
6 March 2015
Dirk Hofman
It’s nothing short of compliment,in the sixteen Tests in which they faced each other Hedley took Bradman’s wicket eight times..
6 March 2015
Dirk Hofman
@Peter,also HV credited with keeping Bradman’s average below 150..
6 March 2015
Chris The Siteowner
Ah, together at last, Peter and Dirk in conversation. Never have so many commas and full stops been followed by so few spaces. 😉
6 March 2015
bruce
Died of wounds in a prisoner of war camp in Italy; according to Peter Tinniswood his last words to his men on the battle field were “keep going”
@C . t . S . O It’s the laziness of the single digit typist, can’t even blame it on the mono-space font..
8 March 2015
JOHN DEMOND BOYLE
Hedley Verity, Yorkshire v Nottinghamshire, Leeds, 1932: Overs19.4, Maidens 16, Runs 10, Wickets 10. What a waste of talent.
Compare Archie Jackson (cover of Voyage to the Bottom of the Road) and his sad demise, 23 years old.
8 March 2015
dickhead in quicksand
Not enough officers around to nominate him for an MC? He bloody well should have got one.
9 March 2015
peter mcornithologist
According to todays Independent, Hedley is ranked as the 5th greatest English bowler. Fuckin Hell. Fred Titmus not even in the top 10.
10 May 2015
Mr X
A book was published in 2014 giving the story of Hedley Verity’s ten for ten for Yorkshire against Nottinghamshire.
20 May 2015
The real roger green
Blue plaque on display outside Hedley’s birthplace on Welton Grove near Hyde Park Picture House in Leeds.
20 May 2015
EXXO
Just round the corner from me that.
Nearest other blue plaque is Arthur Ransome’s birthplace, only about 100 yards from Hedley’s, but several social strata apart.
20 May 2015
Alice van der meer
A copy of the book about the 10 for 10 match has just plopped onto my doormat (you’d think it would be housetrained), and already I’ve discovered that Verity’s son was an extremely accomplished climber, deputy leader of the “Snowdonia” mountain rescue team (inverted commas as I’m not sure that’s the correct name), and one of his best friends was Joe Brown.
Eeeoooeeooo…..
16 June 2020
ALICE van der meer
July 5th – on this day in 1905 future South African cricketer Jock Cameron was born – he who famously smacked 30 runs in an over off Verity when the tourists played Yorkshire, which brought about the famous remark from his skipper “Tha’s got him in two minds, he doesn’t know whether to hit thee for four or six!”
Died in 1935 of enteric fever.
5 July 2021
EXXO
And next Monday – July 12th – is the 79th anniversary of Hedley Verity rocking Notts with 10 for 10 at Headingley. 10 for ruddy 10.
5 July 2021
ALICE van der meer
We will be raising glasses that night anyway, as it will be SWMBO’s birthday and we will have had our 2nd jabs, but I will make sure that we raise one to the memory of Hedley Verity. May the Elysian Playing Fields always have turn and bounce!
5 July 2021
ALICE van der meer
89th, BTW, not 79th.
5 July 2021
EXXO
True.
How’s your season going BTW? I play for two teams and have an infinitely good average with the 1 in 12 Club (2 innings, 18 not out) and an infinitely bad average with the Woodhouse Winos (1 golden duck). I’ve bowled about 9 overs in 5 matches and my 5 wickets have all been jammy, including a lucky stumping off a wide, two or three wickets from full tosses and someone hitting their own wicket while smashing me for 4. Not especially Hedleyverityesque but I’ll take it.
5 July 2021
EXXO
It’s official Hedley Verity week in my house this week. Monday 12th was the 89th anniversary of 10 for 10 so I re-read the book about that.
Wednesday was the 88th anniversary of 17 Essex wickets in one day (who can name the ground without looking it up?). I celebrated by having someone dropped off my first ball in a match at Kirkstall (bowling from the Headingley End) and finished with 2-1-0-4.
Today is the 86th anniversary of Verity finishing with the most economical test bowling figures ever recorded in England and the 4th most economical in world test history. In Australia’s first innings 2 days earlier he recorded the 2nd most economical in the history of tests in England.
This coming Monday 19th is the 78th anniversary of him never getting to bowl those hand grenades with a “Howzat Fritz!” like in the comics when were kids.
16 July 2021
gavin
How can you go for no runs but have a non-maiden over?
17 July 2021
EXXO
Oh yeah, 2-1-4-0 then, soz.
17 July 2021
Alice van der meer
As an Essex boy, I’ve expunged Hedley’s feats against Essex from my mind!
Teamwise the season is a bit rough – I haven’t checked the WLD stats but I’m pretty sure that L beats the other two at the mo. Personally, top of the wickets table at the mo, but Ranj is just behind me, who has no hobbies bar cricket and eating, so never, ever misses a match, and I have a holiday coming up, so I fear his zero-paced seam up dibbly-dobblies will overcome my near-zero-paced frog-in-a-blender stuff. And a vaguely decent season with the bat – usually at 8 (I did rise to a mighty 7 one week!), and into double figures most innings with a top score of n-n-n-n. Won’t mention what I’ve enjoyed most until the run ends or the season ends in case I jinx it! Plus 4 catches and a run-out to equal my best ever season in the field.
Tomorrow, somehow, we play on the front lawn of Stoneleigh Abbey (if we can get there for Grand Prix traffic…), voted in 2003 the most beautiful ground in England – quite why we’re not playing locally I don’t know, probably the lurgi, which is why Stoneleigh needed an opposition. All the country house cricket is all very well but, as the leg spinner, I’m the one who has to break in and nick the jewels… it’s extra pressure on the figures!
17 July 2021
EXXO
Great stuff. I can only dream of bowling 74 overs in a season – blimey I might be half decent if I had that much practice – we all have to bowl 2 overs each in the mad 20/20 evening games for our mini-league-within-a-club, and I hardly play any of the main XI’s Sunday 40’s. Could take me about 3 seasons to bowl 74 overs! The obligatory nature of the task made me hate every ball when we started playing the 2 overs rule, a couple of seasons ago. Add nerves to somewhat arthritic fingers and it was wide after wide. But I’ve gradually overcome that – not least because if you only look forward to batting, and then go about 3 games without even being called on, you get out for a duck and suddenly it’s 6 weeks since you hit a run, that sort of thing. But I still love batting ten times as much as bowling.
Generally, cricket’s been such a good way to come out of lockdowns last year and this. Very good for my social life and the clubhouse has finally become my local through watching the Euros there. So far this year I haven’t made myself available for any match more than a few miles from home, although we can play at some wonderful upland grounds above the Dales, so that means I’m unlikely to get selected for our own annual ‘stately home’ game at Harewood House. Hope your smash and grab today goes well Adrian!
18 July 2021
EXXO
Oh and the answer was Leyton. Which was the HQ of Essex CCC for a number of years, until the end of that season, in fact.
18 July 2021
Alice van der meer
I’d forgotten about Leyton – though I knew that Essex didn’t actually own the ground at Chelmsford until the 1960s, and in part thanks to a loan from the Warwickshire supporters club (I think). Famous/notorious of course for the travelling circus where they’d pack the whole club up into box vans and go play round the county for half the season!
Dunno if the link works, but here’s my lot playing Stoneleigh (we bowled them out for 86, but only made 67 ourselves…) https://flic.kr/p/2mcnocg
20 July 2021
ALICE van der meer
1st September 1939. The last day of first-class cricket before WW2. As the panzers rolled into Poland, Hedley took 7-9 against Sussex at Hove, finishing the season with 199 wickets at 13.13. We know the rest of the story, sadly.
What I can’t get over is how big his hands were – he was tall, but just look at the size of that ball relative to his hands. I reckon he could have got enough revs to turn it off a sheet of glass.
On their way to the 1954-55 Ashes the Aussie team’s boat stopped off at Naples for them to lay a wreath, a white rose and a Yorkshire scarf on his grave in the miltary cemetery at Caserta.
2 September 2021
ALICE van der meer
Freudian slip there, I think, Dr D – England were the tourists in 1954-55.
2 September 2021
dr desperate
Damn, that’s what happens when you over-edit a post. Of course it was Len Hutton’s side on their way to Oz.
2 September 2021
EXXO
But we notice you don’t deny the Doc’s implication of a sub-conscious urge to kill the England team and marry the Australians.
2 September 2021
EXXO
Alice’s implication.
(sorry – logic and proportion are talking sloppy dead).
2 September 2021
ALICE van der meer
Hedley has just been mentioned on TMS in the context of longest innings for fewest runs – annoyingly I missed the stat, in my surprise at hearing his name. Unsurprisingly, during the Bodyline series.
20 December 2021
EXXO
I didn’t hear it either, but if was the Bodyline series then the reference must have been to the famous partnership supporting Eddie Paynter in the 4th test, the latter getting up from his hospital bed to perform one of England’s few heroic cameos of that disgraceful series. But I’d be surprised if 23 n/o off 157 balls is a slow scoring rate record. I wonder if they detoured the conversation to that innings after talking about another, lower rate Hedley one?
20 December 2021
EXXO
Even if they were talking about a slow batting record for England in Oz, or indeed for any Ashes test, it turns out they should have been talking about Geoff Miller with his 7 off 101 balls, a Melbourne innings that started in 1978 and ended in 1979.
20 December 2021
PAUL F
More discussion on his wartime exploits currently on TMS.
4 July 2022
ALICE van der meer
90 years ago today (12th July), the greatest bowling spell in first-class history. I shall raise a glass tonight.
There, that takes my mind off England’s performance in the first ODI!
12 July 2022
EXXO
But Hedley never got 3 for 21 in the Netherlands, Adrian (love stalkin’ people’s stats on play-cricket.com, me).
Can’t believe I’ve missed that anniversary till now, as this afternoon I was invigilating a very boring long test and spent much time on sports stats sites – because the ones with no pictures and pure tables of stats look a bit “academic” from a distance.
The main stats-to-blow-the-mind that I texted out to my club today was that our 15 best bowling performances this season are by 15 different bowlers and our 20 best innings are by 15 different batsmen.
But yeah got some Kirkstall Pale here to toast the teetotal Verity. Cheers Hedley lad!
12 July 2022
Alice van der meer
Can’t think of a better person to be stalked by. Well, except NB10, maybe.
Great stats idea – must try that!
12 July 2022
EXXO
80 years ago this week. After spells in India, Egypt, Syria, through Palestine and back to Egypt… the 1st Battalion Green Howards Yorkshire Regiment had no idea where they were going, heading towards Port Said as it turned out. They knew that they had trained for amphibious landing and attack of entrenched German positions … and they knew it was imminent …they just didn’t know where. The largest seaborne invasion of WW2 was not to be D-Day, but rather Operation Husky, the Allied invasion of Sicily in July 1943… and even Captain Hedley Verity wouldn’t know that was the target until after the embarkation on 5th/6th July for around 100 perilous hours at sea, hugging the recently liberated North African coast …
4 July 2023
Alice van der meer
Dropped in here to mention the anniversary of the last 1st class match before WW2… and realised what I was doing two years ago today. Wally! (Hammond?)
Weird season, long gaps between performances, but last week took no less than four catches in two games, only the keeper is ahead of me on fielding dismissals… not need for Mr Dropsy!
Dirk Hofman
Master of the slower ball,Don Bradman said that deadly Hedley was the only bowler to have perplexed and out played him.His left arm occasionals bowled him into the record books-ten for ten,a first class record that still stands,i’ll have to check Wisden to see if fourteen wickets in a match is still there.He was born and bred in Headingley,the ‘spoons local to the Leeds Arena is now named after him..
6 March 2015
peter mcornithologist
@ Dirk. Am I right in believing that Hedley took Bradmans wicket more often than anyone else? Also ,do you think the term Hedley Verityesque is nothing short of magnificent?
6 March 2015
Dirk Hofman
It’s nothing short of compliment,in the sixteen Tests in which they faced each other Hedley took Bradman’s wicket eight times..
6 March 2015
Dirk Hofman
@Peter,also HV credited with keeping Bradman’s average below 150..
6 March 2015
Chris The Siteowner
Ah, together at last, Peter and Dirk in conversation. Never have so many commas and full stops been followed by so few spaces. 😉
6 March 2015
bruce
Died of wounds in a prisoner of war camp in Italy; according to Peter Tinniswood his last words to his men on the battle field were “keep going”
6 March 2015
Gordo
I think Stephen Hawking is a fan http://youtu.be/Vg2PzEA4LMw
7 March 2015
Dirk Hofman
@C . t . S . O It’s the laziness of the single digit typist, can’t even blame it on the mono-space font..
8 March 2015
JOHN DEMOND BOYLE
Hedley Verity, Yorkshire v Nottinghamshire, Leeds, 1932:
Overs19.4, Maidens 16, Runs 10, Wickets 10. What a waste of talent.
Compare Archie Jackson (cover of Voyage to the Bottom of the Road) and his sad demise, 23 years old.
8 March 2015
dickhead in quicksand
Not enough officers around to nominate him for an MC? He bloody well should have got one.
9 March 2015
peter mcornithologist
According to todays Independent, Hedley is ranked as the 5th greatest English bowler. Fuckin Hell. Fred Titmus not even in the top 10.
10 May 2015
Mr X
A book was published in 2014 giving the story of Hedley Verity’s ten for ten for Yorkshire against Nottinghamshire.
20 May 2015
The real roger green
Blue plaque on display outside Hedley’s birthplace on Welton Grove near Hyde Park Picture House in Leeds.
20 May 2015
EXXO
Just round the corner from me that.
Nearest other blue plaque is Arthur Ransome’s birthplace, only about 100 yards from Hedley’s, but several social strata apart.
20 May 2015
Alice van der meer
A copy of the book about the 10 for 10 match has just plopped onto my doormat (you’d think it would be housetrained), and already I’ve discovered that Verity’s son was an extremely accomplished climber, deputy leader of the “Snowdonia” mountain rescue team (inverted commas as I’m not sure that’s the correct name), and one of his best friends was Joe Brown.
Eeeoooeeooo…..
16 June 2020
ALICE van der meer
July 5th – on this day in 1905 future South African cricketer Jock Cameron was born – he who famously smacked 30 runs in an over off Verity when the tourists played Yorkshire, which brought about the famous remark from his skipper “Tha’s got him in two minds, he doesn’t know whether to hit thee for four or six!”
Died in 1935 of enteric fever.
5 July 2021
EXXO
And next Monday – July 12th – is the 79th anniversary of Hedley Verity rocking Notts with 10 for 10 at Headingley. 10 for ruddy 10.
5 July 2021
ALICE van der meer
We will be raising glasses that night anyway, as it will be SWMBO’s birthday and we will have had our 2nd jabs, but I will make sure that we raise one to the memory of Hedley Verity. May the Elysian Playing Fields always have turn and bounce!
5 July 2021
ALICE van der meer
89th, BTW, not 79th.
5 July 2021
EXXO
True.
How’s your season going BTW? I play for two teams and have an infinitely good average with the 1 in 12 Club (2 innings, 18 not out) and an infinitely bad average with the Woodhouse Winos (1 golden duck). I’ve bowled about 9 overs in 5 matches and my 5 wickets have all been jammy, including a lucky stumping off a wide, two or three wickets from full tosses and someone hitting their own wicket while smashing me for 4. Not especially Hedleyverityesque but I’ll take it.
5 July 2021
EXXO
It’s official Hedley Verity week in my house this week. Monday 12th was the 89th anniversary of 10 for 10 so I re-read the book about that.
Wednesday was the 88th anniversary of 17 Essex wickets in one day (who can name the ground without looking it up?). I celebrated by having someone dropped off my first ball in a match at Kirkstall (bowling from the Headingley End) and finished with 2-1-0-4.
Today is the 86th anniversary of Verity finishing with the most economical test bowling figures ever recorded in England and the 4th most economical in world test history. In Australia’s first innings 2 days earlier he recorded the 2nd most economical in the history of tests in England.
This coming Monday 19th is the 78th anniversary of him never getting to bowl those hand grenades with a “Howzat Fritz!” like in the comics when were kids.
16 July 2021
gavin
How can you go for no runs but have a non-maiden over?
17 July 2021
EXXO
Oh yeah, 2-1-4-0 then, soz.
17 July 2021
Alice van der meer
As an Essex boy, I’ve expunged Hedley’s feats against Essex from my mind!
Teamwise the season is a bit rough – I haven’t checked the WLD stats but I’m pretty sure that L beats the other two at the mo. Personally, top of the wickets table at the mo, but Ranj is just behind me, who has no hobbies bar cricket and eating, so never, ever misses a match, and I have a holiday coming up, so I fear his zero-paced seam up dibbly-dobblies will overcome my near-zero-paced frog-in-a-blender stuff. And a vaguely decent season with the bat – usually at 8 (I did rise to a mighty 7 one week!), and into double figures most innings with a top score of n-n-n-n. Won’t mention what I’ve enjoyed most until the run ends or the season ends in case I jinx it! Plus 4 catches and a run-out to equal my best ever season in the field.
If it’s any help, I’m bugger-all use at anything other than cricket! If you have insomnia, have a snout here: https://uoh.play-cricket.com/Statistics?season=222&sub_tab=Standard&tab=Bowling
Tomorrow, somehow, we play on the front lawn of Stoneleigh Abbey (if we can get there for Grand Prix traffic…), voted in 2003 the most beautiful ground in England – quite why we’re not playing locally I don’t know, probably the lurgi, which is why Stoneleigh needed an opposition. All the country house cricket is all very well but, as the leg spinner, I’m the one who has to break in and nick the jewels… it’s extra pressure on the figures!
17 July 2021
EXXO
Great stuff. I can only dream of bowling 74 overs in a season – blimey I might be half decent if I had that much practice – we all have to bowl 2 overs each in the mad 20/20 evening games for our mini-league-within-a-club, and I hardly play any of the main XI’s Sunday 40’s. Could take me about 3 seasons to bowl 74 overs! The obligatory nature of the task made me hate every ball when we started playing the 2 overs rule, a couple of seasons ago. Add nerves to somewhat arthritic fingers and it was wide after wide. But I’ve gradually overcome that – not least because if you only look forward to batting, and then go about 3 games without even being called on, you get out for a duck and suddenly it’s 6 weeks since you hit a run, that sort of thing. But I still love batting ten times as much as bowling.
Generally, cricket’s been such a good way to come out of lockdowns last year and this. Very good for my social life and the clubhouse has finally become my local through watching the Euros there. So far this year I haven’t made myself available for any match more than a few miles from home, although we can play at some wonderful upland grounds above the Dales, so that means I’m unlikely to get selected for our own annual ‘stately home’ game at Harewood House. Hope your smash and grab today goes well Adrian!
18 July 2021
EXXO
Oh and the answer was Leyton. Which was the HQ of Essex CCC for a number of years, until the end of that season, in fact.
18 July 2021
Alice van der meer
I’d forgotten about Leyton – though I knew that Essex didn’t actually own the ground at Chelmsford until the 1960s, and in part thanks to a loan from the Warwickshire supporters club (I think). Famous/notorious of course for the travelling circus where they’d pack the whole club up into box vans and go play round the county for half the season!
Dunno if the link works, but here’s my lot playing Stoneleigh (we bowled them out for 86, but only made 67 ourselves…) https://flic.kr/p/2mcnocg
20 July 2021
ALICE van der meer
1st September 1939. The last day of first-class cricket before WW2. As the panzers rolled into Poland, Hedley took 7-9 against Sussex at Hove, finishing the season with 199 wickets at 13.13. We know the rest of the story, sadly.
What I can’t get over is how big his hands were – he was tall, but just look at the size of that ball relative to his hands. I reckon he could have got enough revs to turn it off a sheet of glass.
https://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/149080.html
1 September 2021
dr desperate
On their way to the 1954-55 Ashes the Aussie team’s boat stopped off at Naples for them to lay a wreath, a white rose and a Yorkshire scarf on his grave in the miltary cemetery at Caserta.
2 September 2021
ALICE van der meer
Freudian slip there, I think, Dr D – England were the tourists in 1954-55.
2 September 2021
dr desperate
Damn, that’s what happens when you over-edit a post. Of course it was Len Hutton’s side on their way to Oz.
2 September 2021
EXXO
But we notice you don’t deny the Doc’s implication of a sub-conscious urge to kill the England team and marry the Australians.
2 September 2021
EXXO
Alice’s implication.
(sorry – logic and proportion are talking sloppy dead).
2 September 2021
ALICE van der meer
Hedley has just been mentioned on TMS in the context of longest innings for fewest runs – annoyingly I missed the stat, in my surprise at hearing his name. Unsurprisingly, during the Bodyline series.
20 December 2021
EXXO
I didn’t hear it either, but if was the Bodyline series then the reference must have been to the famous partnership supporting Eddie Paynter in the 4th test, the latter getting up from his hospital bed to perform one of England’s few heroic cameos of that disgraceful series. But I’d be surprised if 23 n/o off 157 balls is a slow scoring rate record. I wonder if they detoured the conversation to that innings after talking about another, lower rate Hedley one?
20 December 2021
EXXO
Even if they were talking about a slow batting record for England in Oz, or indeed for any Ashes test, it turns out they should have been talking about Geoff Miller with his 7 off 101 balls, a Melbourne innings that started in 1978 and ended in 1979.
20 December 2021
PAUL F
More discussion on his wartime exploits currently on TMS.
4 July 2022
ALICE van der meer
90 years ago today (12th July), the greatest bowling spell in first-class history. I shall raise a glass tonight.
https://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/149423.html
There, that takes my mind off England’s performance in the first ODI!
12 July 2022
EXXO
But Hedley never got 3 for 21 in the Netherlands, Adrian (love stalkin’ people’s stats on play-cricket.com, me).
Can’t believe I’ve missed that anniversary till now, as this afternoon I was invigilating a very boring long test and spent much time on sports stats sites – because the ones with no pictures and pure tables of stats look a bit “academic” from a distance.
The main stats-to-blow-the-mind that I texted out to my club today was that our 15 best bowling performances this season are by 15 different bowlers and our 20 best innings are by 15 different batsmen.
But yeah got some Kirkstall Pale here to toast the teetotal Verity. Cheers Hedley lad!
12 July 2022
Alice van der meer
Can’t think of a better person to be stalked by. Well, except NB10, maybe.
Great stats idea – must try that!
12 July 2022
EXXO
80 years ago this week. After spells in India, Egypt, Syria, through Palestine and back to Egypt… the 1st Battalion Green Howards Yorkshire Regiment had no idea where they were going, heading towards Port Said as it turned out. They knew that they had trained for amphibious landing and attack of entrenched German positions … and they knew it was imminent …they just didn’t know where. The largest seaborne invasion of WW2 was not to be D-Day, but rather Operation Husky, the Allied invasion of Sicily in July 1943… and even Captain Hedley Verity wouldn’t know that was the target until after the embarkation on 5th/6th July for around 100 perilous hours at sea, hugging the recently liberated North African coast …
4 July 2023
Alice van der meer
Dropped in here to mention the anniversary of the last 1st class match before WW2… and realised what I was doing two years ago today. Wally! (Hammond?)
Weird season, long gaps between performances, but last week took no less than four catches in two games, only the keeper is ahead of me on fielding dismissals… not need for Mr Dropsy!
1 September 2023