Eric Hollies, born June 5, 1912, was famous for that one ball which breached Don Bradman’s defence and bowled him for a duck in the legend’s final innings. However, there was more to the man than that one delivery. Arunabha Sengupta looks back at the life and career of the long serving Warwickshire leg-spinner.
There was much more to Eric Hollies than that one delivery bowled at The Oval.
For one and a half decades, split cruelly down the middle by the Second World War, he had been a toiling leg-break googly bowler playing off and on for England, often with significant success. For almost a quarter of a century he was a pillar of the Warwickshire attack, topping 100 wickets in 14 of the 19 complete seasons he turned out for the county.
In the 13-Tests that he managed to play, he had 5 five-wicket hauls in the handful of matches. One of them came in that very Oval Test, and the achievement was quickly drowned in the tumult surrounding Don Bradman’s farewell. In the famed 1950 series immortalised by the feats of Sonny Ramadhin and Alf Valentine, it is often forgotten that England initially took the lead — due to 8 wickets bagged by Hollies in the first Test. He played just one more Test after that — in the series and in his career.
England spurned him for the Kangaroo-hop leg-breaks of Doug Wright during the 1950-51 tour of Australia and then ignored him altogether. The very next summer, he spun Warwickshire to the county championship, capturing 145 wickets at 17.69. And after this fair haired stocky back of the hand bowler had been in the wilderness for half a decade, Wisden had to acknowledge him as one of the Five Cricketers of 1955.
When he ended his career two years later, the 2323 wickets at 20.94 was testimony to his immense skill and guile. Sadly only 44 of these came in Test matches. But, Hollies was not one to depart embittered by his limited opportunities. His incredible sense of humour carried him through all the ups and downs of life.
In Australia, as he struggled in the heat and on those shirt front pitches, he was ignored by skipper Freddie Brown and relegated to fielding in the country by the infamous Sydney Hill. The barrackers found him an isolated easy target and homed in for the kill: “What’s the matter? Don’t they bury their dead in Birmingham?”
Hollies’ response was prompt: “No, they stuff ’em and send ’em out to Australia.”
Physically, Hollies was almost a prototype of Shane Warne — stocky and fair-haired, producing counter-clockwise torque on the ball. However, there were differences. He did not court controversy and was not touched with highlights. On the other hand, he did possess a googly – the one that famously prevented Bradman from his three figure average. He also turned it a lot less than the later Australian great. He was quick through the air, often flat — and the lack of turn was made up with nagging accuracy.
Hollies ambled in with a few leisurely paces, and all the menace was concentrated in his variations of flight, pace and turn. The googly and top-spinner were well disguised and often lethal. He had the ability to bowl longer than most leg-spinners, once bowling an incredible 73 overs against Worcestershire. Perhaps only Clarrie Grimmett among bowlers of his type stuck to the line and length with the same degree of persistence as did Hollies.
Born in Old Hill, Staffordshire, Hollies learnt his cricket under the enthusiastic eyes of his father — an able club cricketer. At the tender age of thirteen, he was already fascinated by the esoteric art of leg spin and was bowling for the Old Hill Second XI in the Birmingham League. The following year Hollies made the first team and it was not long before Warwickshire became interested.
The first season was understandably spent learning the secrets of the game at the top level, but by 1933, he had matured into a thoroughbred. And by the winter of 1934-35, he had been chosen to tour West Indies under Bob Wyatt.
The debut of Hollies was in that macabre Test at Barbados, where rain played as big a part as the cricketers. Batting orders were shuffled and premature declarations took place to ensure the opposition had to bat when the conditions were at the worst. Hollies dismissed two batsmen in the limited opportunities he got to bowl, and England, set 75 to win, scraped home by 4 wickets.
In his next Test, the third of the series at Guyana, Hollies picked up 7 for 50, his career-best figures. And strangely, after the following Test at Kingston, his next opportunity to play representative cricket came almost a dozen years later. He kept capturing over hundred wickets a season for Warwickshire, but his Test claims were ignored.
When cricket started after the Second World War, Hollies was in his prime. He started with seven for 77 in his first match against Sussex and ended the 1946 season with a whopping 184 wickets at 15.60, with 19 five-wicket hauls and 6 10-fors. This included all 10 in an innings against Nottinghamshire without the help of fielders, 7 of them bowled and the other 3 leg-before. Yet, for some curious reason, he was not in the team bound for Australia that winter — Doug Wright being preferred in his place.
Brought back against South Africa in 1947, he resumed his Test career with a five-wicket haul at Trent Bridge, and bowled steadily, but without too much success for the rest of the series.
Don Bradman b Hollies 0
And then came the Ashes Test at The Oval in 1948 that has inked his name in immortality. Overlooked for the first four Tests of the Ashes series despite England’s prolonged struggle, Hollies was included in the team for the final Test at The Oval. Ray Lindwall routed the Englishmen for 52 and Arthur Morris and Sid Barnes put on 117 in just over a couple of hours. At this juncture, Hollies got Barnes to snick one to Godfrey Evans — the moment the entire stadium was waiting for.
In walked Don Bradman, in his last Test, his approach to the wicket accompanied by deafening ovation. England captain Norman Yardley gathered his men, raised his cap and called for three cheers. Bradman took guard after shaking hands with his rival skipper. His collection of runs stood at 6,996 after 69 completed innings, at an average of 100.14.
Hollies sent down a leg-break, and Bradman went back and across to play it to Allan Watkins at silly mid-off. The next ball was the most famous googly ever bowled. It came out of the back of the hand. Bradman, drawn forward, missed it and was bowled for a duck. He famously walked back four short of 7,000 runs and an average of 100 in Test cricket.
Hollies had achieved the best feat of his career, and ironically the ear-splitting applause that rung out was for the departing batsman. John Arlott in the commentary box lamented, “Bradman bowled Hollies nought. And what can one say in these circumstances? I wonder if you see the ball very clearly in your last Test in England, on a ground where you’ve played some of the biggest cricket of your life, and where the opposing side has just stood round you and given you three cheers, and the crowd has clapped you all the way to the wicket. I wonder if you really see the ball at all.”
There is a legend that Bradman played the ball through a mist of tears — something he supposedly confided later to Len Hutton. Yet, there are many who disagree. The inimitable Jack Crapp, standing in slip during that delivery, voiced the opinion that “The b***er Bradman never had a tear in his eye his whole life.”
And there is a counter-legend in Warwickshire that, before leaving for the Test, Hollies had told his county captain Tom Dollery he would send down a second-ball googly to Bradman. Hollies ended the innings with 5 for 131, having dismissed Barnes, Bradman, Keith Miller, Neil Harvey and Don Bradman. Yet, his best bowling performance had perhaps been witnessed 10 days earlier. Bowling against the Australians for Warwickshire, he had captured 8 for 107, and had disturbed Bradman’s stumps for 31. Curiously, he had accounted for the openers Morris and Bill Brown in the innings, getting both of them hit wicket. So, tears or not, Hollies was a top-notch bowler who had the ability to knock over Bradman’s stumps.
After Tests
Hollies played just six more Tests, four against New Zealand, and two against West Indies. In the first Test at Old Trafford in his final series, Valentine went through a dream debut with 8 wickets in the first innings. Yet, it was Hollies who won the match for England picking up 5 for 63 in the second innings. This included the wickets of Frank Worrell and Everton Weekes. However, as we have said, he played only one more Test.
Hollies did go to Australia in 1950-51. His claims could not be ignored after another brilliant summer. But, 21 wickets at an average of almost 41 in the tour matches were disappointing returns. He found it difficult to adjust to the Australian wickets, and Wright was preferred over him in the Tests.
With the influx of several superlative slow bowlers in the form of Jim Laker, Tony Lock, Johnny Wardle, Roy Tattersall and Bob Appleyard, England could dispense with the services of Hollies. However, he continued to be the fair haired Peter Pan of Warwickshire, and when Australia visited in 1953, he brought them to the brink of defeat with seven wickets in the tour match.
Apart from leg-spin, the other defining feature of Hollies was his absolute ineptitude with bat. He was one of cricket’s foremost rabbits, and his collection of 1,673 First-Class runs is well short of his 2,323 wickets. In Tests too, his 44 wickets easily exceed the 37 runs. Here too, his second line of defence was humour. Hollies was known to approach the crease and pat down imaginary unevenness with the extreme care of a seasoned batsman. And once, in Worcester, while walking to the wicket he found fielders walking up to take their positions in close quarters. He promptly handed his bat to the umpire and crouched in the leg-trap.
After calling it a day in 1957, he played a few matches for Staffordshire the following year. Moving on to the Saturday games, he continued to bowl with success in the Birmingham League until he was into his sixties. His remarkable longevity was ensured by the easy amble to the wicket, the zest for the game and that perennial cheerfulness.
Hollies passed away in April, 1981.
(Arunabha Sengupta is a cricket historian and Chief Cricket Writer at CricketCountry.He writes about the history and the romance of the game, punctuated often by opinions about modern day cricket, while his post-graduate degree in statistics peeps through in occasional analytical pieces. The author of three novels, he can be followed on Twitter at http://twitter.com/senantix)
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