Billy Bates

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Willie Bates, known as Billy (19 November 1855 - 8 January 1900) was an English all-round cricketer. Excellent with both bat and ball, Bates scored over 10,000 first-class runs, took more than 870 wickets and was always reliable in the field. A snappy dresser, Bates was also known as "The Duke".

Born to a humble family in Lascelles Hall, Huddersfield, Yorkshire, Bates became a professional cricketer for Rochdale in 1873 and made his first-class debut for Yorkshire four years later, taking four for 69 in Middlesex's first innings to begin a ten-year career in the first-class game. He played fifteen Test matches for England between 1881/82 and 1886/87, all of them in Australia.

At Melbourne in 1882/83, Bates played a starring role. He scored 55 in England's only innings before taking seven for 28 (including a hat-trick for England) to force Australia to follow on. He then claimed seven for 74 in the second innings to help his team to the first-ever innings victory in Test cricket. Bates also set several individual Test-Match records in this game: his hat-trick was the first for England, seven for 28 was a world-record innings return, no Englishman had previously taken fourteen wickets in a game and no player from any country had previously taken ten or more wickets and scored a half-century in the same match.

In domestic cricket, Bates topped 100 first-class wickets only once, in 1881, when he took 121, but he passed eighty on another four occasions. His best bowling of eight for 21 came in 1879, for Yorkshire against Surrey at The Oval. As a batsman he passed 1,000 runs in five seasons, scoring ten centuries, including three in 1884. He made his highest first-class score of 144 not out in 1882 for Under 30 v Over 30 at Lord's, where he also recorded a miserly second-innings analysis of 22-15-17-3.

The end of Bates's career came suddenly. On a non-Test tour of Australia with GF Vernon's XI in 1887/88, he was bowling in the nets when he was hit in the eye by a ball struck by a team-mate. His eyesight was sufficiently impaired that he never again played first-class cricket, although he did appear in club cricket in the early 1890s, and was still able to coach.

His inability to play the first-class game again caused him great depression. On the voyage home from Australia, he attempted suicide and, at the end of December 1899, caught a cold whilst attending the funeral of fellow Yorkshire player John Thewlis. His condition quickly deteriorated: he died a few days later in Huddersfield, aged just forty-four.

His son William Bates had a long first-class career for Yorkshire and Glamorgan.

External links

• Player Profile: Billy Bates from Cricinfo
• CricketArchive page on Billy Bates