Brian Statham

(John) Brian Statham (born June 17, 1930, Manchester; died June 10, 2000, Stockport, Cheshire) was one of the finest bowlers in the history of cricket. Initially a bowler of a brisk fast-medium pace, Statham was able to remodel his action to generate enough speed to become genuinely fast. This, together with unflagging accuracy and the ability to make the ball - new or old - break back, made Statham a consistent force both for Lancashire in the County Championship and in Test cricket, where his strikepower helped give England its strongest attack of the twentieth century during the 1950s. In all, he took 252 wickets in Test matches, a tally bettered only by Freddie Trueman at the time.

Sudden Emergence

Statham played his earliest cricket for the Denton club near Manchester, along with three brothers. At the age of eighteen, he came to notice of the Lancashire officials who needed considerable reinforcement for their bowling attack, and he was offered an engagement a year later, which he accepted.

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In his first year, Statham had relatively little bowling to do because the underprepared pitches at Old Trafford were so favourable to spinners Roy Tattersall and Malcolm Hilton. Nonetheless, two fine performances against Somerset and Yorkshire and several valuable early wickets in other innings gave him an excellent average even though he only took 36 wickets in the County Championship. This placed him top of the average amongst bowlers of pace, but at the time he was seen as only a promising newcomer who might strengthen a department in which England had been deplorably weak ever since the resumption of first-class cricket after World War II. However, when England were depleted by injuries in Australia, Statham and off-spinner Tattersall were surprisingly called into the team despite no previous representative experience. Though Statham did not achieve anything of note in his initial Test, by the time the 1951 season began he had made a meteoric rise.

Related Topics:
Old Trafford - Roy Tattersall - Malcolm Hilton - County Championship - World War II

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