Herbert Sutcliffe
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 England (Eng) |
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| Batting style | Right-handed batsman (RHB) | |
| Bowling type | Right arm medium (RM) | |
| Tests | First-class | |
| Matches | 54 | 754 |
| Runs scored | 4,555 | 50,670 |
| Batting average | 60.73 | 52.02 |
| 100s/50s | 16/23 | 151/230 |
| Top score | 194 | 313 |
| Balls bowled | 0 | 993 |
| Wickets | N/A | 14 |
| Bowling average | N/A | 40.21 |
| 5 wickets in innings | N/A | 0 |
| 10 wickets in match | N/A | 0 |
| Best bowling | N/A | 3-15 |
| Catches/stumpings | 23/0 | 474/0 |
Herbert William Sutcliffe (born November 24, 1894, Summerbridge, Harrogate, Yorkshire, England; died January 22, 1978, Cross Hills, Yorkshire, England) was one of the greatest opening batsmen in cricket history. His Test batting average of 60.73 is the fifth highest of any player, and only Don Bradman's and Michael Hussey's is more than a fraction higher. Uniquely, his average never dropped below 60 throughout his entire Test career — Javed Miandad is the only other man whose average never dropped below 50 in a career of at least 20 innings.[2] Sutcliffe's first-class career batting average of 51.95 (according to Wisden, though Cricinfo claim 52.02) is bettered among batsmen who finished their careers with over 50,000 runs only by Hammond.
NB: note that there are different versions of Sutcliffe's first-class career totals. See Variations in First-Class Cricket Statistics for more information.
In his prime from 1928 to 1932 Sutcliffe's feats compared with Bradman's in numerical terms and, given his skill on treacherous pitches, one could argue his batting in this period to be the finest in cricket history. He reached 1,000 Test runs in just 12 innings, one fewer than Bradman. His strokes focused on professional leg-side play with glances, hooks and pulls, but Sutcliffe was able, owing to his simple but always effective footwork, to nullify the best bowling on a treacherous wicket with seeming ease. He was not a classical stylist, with an open stance in which he picked up his bat to third slip. He used his pads in defence, a tactic despised by amateurs, but like Bradman his focus was on figures rather than style. When he thought fit however he could hit almost violently, as when he met spin on an exceedingly treacherous pitch at Kettering with an innings of 113 and ten sixes, then a record in county cricket). Sutcliffe possessed the most remarkable self-belief: he believed no bowler was capable of dismissing him and this gave him the will to fight in circumstances which daunted others.
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[edit] Rapid emergence
World War I, in which he was commissioned into the Green Howards, prevented Sutcliffe from beginning his career for Yorkshire County Cricket Club until the resumption of county cricket in 1919 when Sutcliffe caused a sensation in posting 1839 runs — still a record for a batsman in his debut season — for an average of 44.85. Though bowling was at a low ebb in England in the aftermath of the Great War this was an exceptional start and Sutcliffe was named a Wisden Cricketer of the Year for 1920. Two quieter years followed, though good judges thought he played better than his figures suggested. In 1922, Sutcliffe lived up to the promise of his first year, scoring 2020 runs including a superb 232 against Surrey in a critical county match at the Oval. Sutcliffe was now in contention for a place in the Test team.
[edit] Partnership with Jack Hobbs
His superb batting with Jack Hobbs on a treacherous pitch in the 1923 Test Trial saw him become a certainty for the following year's Tests against South Africa. He did not disappoint: scoring 64 in his first innings, 122 in his second and averaging 75.75 for five innings. That winter, on the Ashes tour of 1924/25, Sutcliffe established himself as England's leading batsman with an amazing aggregate of 734 runs in five Tests against Australia. In the second Test at the MCG he was on the field for all but an hour of a seven-day 'timeless' match. He scored 176 and 127 for a match aggregate of 303 but was unable to prevent Australia winning by 81 runs. Sutcliffe was the first to score hundreds in both innings against Australia.
During 1925 and 1926, Sutcliffe's skill was a primary factor in Yorkshire having the longest unbeaten run in county cricket: an amazing seventy matches without loss until early 1927 — and, after three defeats in 1927, a further fifty-eight games without loss until 1929. The first four Tests of the 1926 Ashes series were all ruined by appalling weather, but at the Oval Hobbs' and Sutcliffe's amazing defence against vigorously kicking off-spin placed England in an impregnable position. The following year, Sutcliffe was (remarkably for a professional) offered the captaincy of Yorkshire, but in characteristic fashion he refused it and said "he would play under any captain" — which he did.
[edit] Incomparable Greatness
1927 was a routine year by the standards Sutcliffe had already attained, but the following year saw him embark on what, given the conditions he often faced, could be seen as the finest batting in the history of the game. During the five years 1928 to 1932, his batting figures read:
- 181 matches for 254 innings in which he was not out 36 times;
- 15529 runs
- for a total average of 70.35.
He toured Australia again in 1928/29 with great aplomb. He twice added a hundred for the first wicket at Sydney with Jack Hobbs and put on 283 with 'the master' in Melbourne. He batted all day on four occasions during the series and was out in the last over of another. After England won the first two Tests Australia seemed poised to pull one back in Melbourne when heavy overnight rain left England faced with a 'sticky dog' on the sixth day of the game. After Australia's last two wickets fell cheaply England needed 332 to win, a seemingly impossible target, and Australian bowler Hugh Trumble, flexing his fingers in the pavilion, told Jack Hobbs that 70 would be a good score. The pitch was not rolled for the full seven minutes during the interval because it was lifting the top off the pitch. Sutcliffe and Hobbs survived for an hour after lunch, adding a hundred, and then Douglas Jardine batted bravely in partnership with the immovable Sutcliffe who saw out the day. The pitch had dried out by start of play on the final day and England knocked off the 160 still required. Sutcliffe completed his century, an innings of 135 he considered his finest effort. Jardine wrote that "without Hobbs and Sutcliffe, the remaining nine Englishmen could have been bowled out twice on such a wicket for half the runs." The match was won by three wickets and with it the Ashes.
In 1929 Sutcliffe hit four hundreds against South Africa and the following year headed the first-class batting averages for the first time. In a summer of hot, thundery weather that produced some exceptionally bad pitches, Sutcliffe averaged 64.22 in all matches and 87.61 for four Tests. He missed the second due to injury which probably cost England the Ashes.
These efforts, mighty though they were, paled into insignificance against his form in the following two summers of dreadful weather and sticky pitches receptive to spin. Sutcliffe seemed impossible to bowl to, because of rather than despite his limited range of strokeplay. His determination was unbreakable. In 1931 he scored four centuries in consecutive innings and averaged an unbelievable 97 an innings in one of the worst summers on record, whilst the following year he became the second batsman after "Ranji" to score 1000 runs in two months. That year he and Maurice Leyland hit Kenneth Farnes, one of the fastest bowlers of the 1930s, for 75 runs from four overs in one of the most remarkable displays of pulling and hooking ever seen. His batting, and the bowling of Bowes and Verity, allowed Yorkshire to win fifteen of their last sixteen games — all but four by an innings — and it seemed a question of "how far" when Sutcliffe toured Australia for the third time that winter.
[edit] Back to earth
Though Sutcliffe hit his highest Test score of 194 at the SCG that winter and averaged 73 for the tour, the easier conditions of the following season were less of a test of his skills. Having scored 3336 at 74.13 the year before he posted a still highly respectable 2211 at 47.04, his lowest in a dry summer since 1921, with a superb double ton against Warwickshire and a remarkable 113 with ten sixes on a bad pitch in Kettering the highlight of his county year.
He scored 304 runs at 50.66 in his four tests in 1934 and yet, after he top scored with 38 on a leatherjacket ruined pitch at Lord's against South Africa in 1935, he was never picked for Test cricket again. Despite the new leg before wicket rule which restricted pad play, Sutcliffe finished second in the first-class averages.
[edit] Last years
Despite a brilliant innings at Scarborough against Middlesex his average fell to 33.30 in 1936 and, with the emergence of Leonard Hutton England's opening batting problems were solved. Sutcliffe's county form recovered strongly and in 1939 he averaged 54.46 with six centuries, despite missing nine matches through illness and injury.
He returned for one sentimental match after the war without success at the age of 51. He was plagued by ill-health for the rest of his life up to his death in 1978. During the 1950s he wrote several articles in Wisden - mostly decrying the changes to the lbw rule in 1935 - and for a time in the early 1960s he was a Test selector.
His son Billy Sutcliffe played for Cambridge University and Yorkshire between 1948 and 1957, captaining Yorkshire for the last three seasons of his career.
[edit] External links
- Player Profile: Herbert Sutcliffe from Cricinfo
- Test batting statistics
- All first-class batting statistics
- Picture of Herbert Sutcliffe
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English batsman with a Test batting average over 50
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