Hedley Verity

Hedley Verity (18 May 1905 in Headingley, Leeds – 31 July 1943 in Caserta, Italy, of wounds received in action in Sicily, where he was taken prisoner) was a prolific left-arm spinner, a useful batsman and sharp field at short leg. He was named as one of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1932.

Ten years the Apprentice

Fittingly, he was born close to Headingley cricket ground in Leeds but the young Verity had to serve a long apprenticeship before he played in a first class game. He attended Yeadon and Guiseley Secondary School, which had a strong team, and Rawdon Cricket Club, his father (also called Hedley Verity) having moved to Rawdon, West Yorkshire to establish a coal supply business.^[1] In his first match for Rawdon, substituting for a senior player, he scored 47 and took seven cheap wickets. On leaving school he started work at his father’s coal depot, but at 15 persuaded his parents to support him as he set his sights on a cricket career with Yorkshire, a process which was to take ten long years. At the age of 16, in 1921, his deeds for Rawdon were reported locally and gained him attention from the County Side. He played for Horsforth Hall Park from 1924 to 1926, earning an invitation to the Yorkshire nets where he first met his mentor, the great George Hirst. Recommended by Hirst, he played as a professional with Accrington in the Lancashire League in 1927.

He had a difficult season, handicapped by an arm injury, and moved to Middleton the next year to gain an assurance that he would be released for Yorkshire duties if needs be. Here he made the final change from a good medium-pace swing bowler to a unique left-arm spinner on the advice of Hirst and Rhodes. He was offered a trial by Warwickshire who rejected him.

In 1929 he happened to be at Headingley when a vacancy arose in the county colts team and took five wickets for seven runs. That season he took 100 wickets for Middleton and also scored a century.

“He’ll do.”

1930 was Rhodes’s final season for Yorkshire and finally the call came for Verity as efforts to find a replacement were made. He first played in a friendly match against Sussex on 21 May, three days after his 25th birthday, taking three for 96 in 46 overs. He made his County Championship entrance ten days later against Leicestershire at Hull. Enjoying some helpful damp pitches, he finished top of the national bowling averages in his debut season and never looked back. His main rival was the Arthur Booth, who in the end had to wait until the age of 43, in 1946, to win a regular place in the Yorkshire side. Verity took nine for 60 against Glamorgan on a bad pitch – only to be told by Emmott Robinson it should have been nine for 20. At the end of the season Rhodes retired, endorsing the succession with the comment “He’ll do.” There could be no higher praise from the old master.

In 1931 Verity claimed 35 wickets in his first five matches, including all ten against Warwickshire at Headingley. He was selected for two Test matches against New Zealand in only his second season and there loomed the possibility of him winning his England cap before his Yorkshire one. As it was Yorkshire capped him on 13 June a month before his Test debut in which he took four for 75.

On 12 July 1932 he took all ten wickets for just 10 runs against Nottinghamshire at Headingley on a rain-affected pitch, including a hat-trick and 113 consecutive dot balls. At one stage he took seven wickets for three runs in 15 deliveries, including the hat-trick. George Macaulay, ever hungry for wickets at the other end, allegedly refused to bowl wide of the stumps to assist Verity in gaining a record which stands to this day - the best first class figures ever.

The Bradman Years

He toured Australia on Douglas Jardine's infamous, and very successful, ‘Bodyline’ tour. Verity tied up one end to rest Harold Larwood and the pacemen in the heat. He topped the tour averages with 44 wickets at less than 16. He proved a dogged supporting partner with the bat as well, supporting whatever major batsman was left with the tail. He developed a friendship with his supposedly aloof captain and held Jardine as the finest captain he had played for. He named his second son after him; his first had been named after Rhodes.^{[citation needed]}

Jardine said Verity had the 'oldest head on young shoulders in England' and doubted whether any other bowler of his type had proved such a master on all types of pitches. “No captain could have a greater asset on his side than Verity. He would make a great captain himself.” Verity did not like ‘bodyline’ but backed his captain to the hilt. He was the only player from the bodyline series to tour India under Jardine the following winter. On this tour he struck up a close friendship with Gloucestershire batsman Charlie Barnett, who knew "of no other cricketer upon whom one could rely whatever the state of the match. He really was a ‘rock’ when the chips were down. Nothing seemed to flurry him." Verity took 72 wickets at 15 each on the sub continent's dust bowls, 23 in three Tests at just 16. His 11 wickets in the third Test was the main factor in England’s decisive victory.

1934's clash with the Australians proved Verity’s greatest series. as he took 24 wickets in the five high-scoring Tests at a cost of 24 apiece. His superb bowling on a wet pitch at Lord’s won the match for England, their only success against Australia there in the 20th century. He took Bradman’s wicket twice in the match, a Test best 15 in all and a remarkable 14 in the space of a single June day which famously led to the employment of a scorer by the BBC to assist commentator Howard Marshall.

Verity was a useful batsman and though he never quite achieved "the double" he took 216 wickets and scored 855 runs in 1936. He ended up averaging a handy 20 for England and like Wilfred Rhodes before him he found himself opening the batting in a Test match, against Australia at the Adelaide Oval on the 1936/37 Ashes tour when Gubby Allen could find no opening pair to take the shine off the new ball. He sent Verity in first with his friend C.J. Barnett in the fourth Test and they put up partnerships of 53 and 45.

Statistically he had a poor second tour of Australia, taking only 10 wickets in the series at 45 each. Australia returned to England in 1938 and Verity sparred with the Bradman again.. He relished the test of wits and skills like few others and in 16 Tests dismissed Bradman eight times, more than any other bowler. Bradman said of him, “With Hedley I am never sure. You see, there’s no breaking point with him.” On the billiard-table wickets of the first two Tests in 1938, he was the one bowler to pose any problems.

His final full Test series was in South Africa in 1938/39 which finished with the ultimate Timeless Test having to be abandoned to allow England to catch their boat home. Again he was England’s most economical bowler with his 19 Test wickets costing 29 each on plumb batting pitches.

In all Verity played in 40 Test matches between 1931 and 1939, taking 144 wickets at 24.37.

A decade of dominance

Yorkshire won seven championships between 1931 and 1939. Verity was a key element in this success. Verity was well served by sharp close fielders with Arthur Mitchell, captain Brian Sellers, Ellis Robinson and Cyril Turner eager to snap up every edge or bat pad chance. After his untimely death Wisden praised both his skill at the bowling crease and demeanour on the field of play. "The balance of the run up, the high ease of the left-handed action, the scrupulous length, the pensive variety, all proclaimed the master. He combined nature with art to a degree not equalled by any other English bowler of our time. He received a handsome legacy of skill and, by an application that verged on scientific research, turned it into a fortune. There have been bowlers who have reached greatness without knowing, or, perhaps, caring to know just how or why; but Verity could analyse his own intentions without losing the joy of surprise and describe their effect without losing the company of a listener. He was the ever-learning professor, justly proud yet utterly humble."

In 1935/36 Yorkshire toured Jamaica and Verity tied down the 'Black Bradman' George Headley and dismissed him twice as Jamaica were beaten at home for the first time in ten years. In the drawn match which ended the tour Verity enjoyed himself with the bat and recorded his only first-class century.

Fine Test bowler though he was, his phenomenal county record remains testimony to his talent. He took at least 150 wickets every year from 1931 to 1939, and over 200 between 1935 and 1937. His best tally was 216 taken at an average of just 13.18, in 1936. In 1931, Verity took 10-36 against Warwickshire at Headingley Stadium, and the following season produced the extraordinary innings analysis of 19.4-16-10-10 (including a hat-trick) against Nottinghamshire at the same ground, this feat is unlikely to ever be beaten. This latter performance remains^[update] a world record in a first-class match.^[2] In 1933, against Essex at Leyton, he took 17 wickets in one day, one of only three occasions in the history of cricket when this has been done. In 1933, 1935, 1937 and 1939 he had the lowest bowling averages in England.

In 378 first class matches he took 1956 wickets at an average of just 14.90.

Death in combat

On 1 September 1939, the very last day of county cricket before the competition was suspended during World War II, Verity was playing against Sussex at Hove, in Jim Parks' benefit game. Other county matches were abandoned as Hitler invaded Poland, but Yorkshire agreed to continue playing for Parks' sake. On a drying pitch, Verity took seven wickets for nine runs in just six overs in the Sussex second innings as Yorkshire skittled the home team for just 33 and raced to victory. His final ball in the game brought a wicket. It was the last ball bowled in County Cricket before the war and Verity himself would never bowl another ball for Yorkshire in the first-class game. He finished top of the first-class averages.

Upon the outbreak of war, Verity served in the ranks of the Royal Engineers as a sapper.^[3] On 10 January 1940 he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Green Howards,^[3] and was sent to Northern Ireland, where he played some cricket as part of military XIs. He then spent time at the regimental depot in Richmond, North Yorkshire, alongside other prominent Yorkshire cricketers, Captain Herbert Sutcliffe, Lieutenant Norman Yardley and Sergeant Len Hutton (a physical training instructor);^[4] and was then posted to Madagascar, India, Persia, Palestine and Egypt before joining the Allied invasion of Sicily in July 1943. By this time a captain, he was mortally wounded during the Eighth Army's advance on Catania and was taken prisoner by the Germans.

Wisden's obituary described his final battle thus:

The objective was a ridge with strong points and pillboxes. Behind a creeping barrage Verity led his company forward 700 yards. When the barrage ceased, they went on another 300 yards and neared the ridge, in darkness. As the men advanced, through corn two feet high, tracer-bullets swept into them. Then they wriggled through the corn, Verity encouraging them with "Keep going, keep going." The moon was at their back, and the enemy used mortar-fire, Very lights and fire-bombs, setting the corn alight. The strongest point appeared to be a farm-house, to the left of the ridge; so Verity sent one platoon round to take the farm-house, while the other gave covering fire. The enemy fire increased, and, as they crept forward, Verity was hit in the chest. "Keep going," he said, "and get them out of that farm-house." When it was decided to withdraw, they last saw Verity lying on the ground, in front of the burning corn, his head supported by his batman.

After being transferred into Italian hands, he died at Caserta a few days later, on 31 July 1943, as a result of his wounds. As he lay in an Italian military hospital, "he is said to have declared, 'I think I have played my last innings for Yorkshire.'"^[4] He is buried in the Caserta War Cemetery, maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.^[5] On 27 March 2007 he became the 7th cricketer to be elected into Yorkshire County Cricket Club's 'Hall of Fame'.^[6]

Bowling Action

Verity bowled off a trotted ten yard run, essentially straight to the wicket, and pivoted in his bowling stride. In British Pathe newsreel, he is shown as closer to Derek Underwood in pace than Bishen Bedi. Slip often stood quite deep.

References

• Cricket Archive
• Cricinfo Profile
• The last gallant steps of Hedley Verity
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