Don Bradman, Wally Hammond, Tich Freeman: Unusual stumpers

This is the story of some unlikely feats behind the stumps by players who were better known for their exploits at the batting crease, or, wonder of wonders, for their bowling skills.

Oxenham conundrum

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‘Tich’ Freeman, or, to give him the name by which he was actually christened, Alfred Percy Freeman was a 158-cm leg-spin and googly-bowling wonder for Kent and England, and the holder of bowling records too numerous to mention here. His incredible turn was made possible by his gripping the ball in an unusual manner between the thumb-, index-, and middle-fingers of his small right hand, rather than in the more conventional way for his genre of bowlers. He had bamboozled 3,776 batsmen in his time with his wizardry at the bowling crease. Let us now take a look at another interesting facet of this pint-sized genius.

MCC team were on tour in Australia in 1924-25, and were scheduled to play against an Australian XI at the Exhibition Ground, Brisbane, starting December 4, the seventh First-Class match of the Australian leg of the tour (they had played a Second-Class game in Ceylon en route). It was in this game that Ronald Oxenham was to have a strange experience, the like of which very few would have ever had in their cricket careers.

‘Stork’ Hendry took first strike. The home team finished on 299 for 5 at stumps on Day One, with Oxenham on 47, having already gone past his previous highest score of 45. Next day, he had taken his individual score to 54, when he became a victim to the wily duo of Tich Freeman and the experienced Bert Strudwick behind the stumps. He was deceived by the spinner and stumped by the ’keeper, one of Freeman’s 6 victims (for 160). However, the home team put up a healthy 526.

MCC, under Johnny Douglas, replied with 421, Clarrie Grimmett and local boy Oxenham picking up 4 wickets each. Patsy Hendren scored an even 100 for the tourists (in 209 minutes with 10 fours and a six).

So far so good, and a normal turn of events for the traditional cricketing rivals, one would be forgiven for imagining. Things were, however, about to get slightly more interesting when the Australia XI batted a second time.

All 11 men in the MCC line-up had a bowl in a drawn. The home team ended up with a score of 257 for 5, scoring their runs at a fairly rapid rate. Among the wicket-takers was future England captain Percy Chapman, with 2 for 33, and bringing up the rear, as it were, was this unusual entry: Strudwick, 3-0-9-1.

This was the man who had held 1,237 catches behind the stumps and made 258 stumpings in his 674 First-Class matches. Well, this was to be his only First-Class wicket, of the local man, Oxenham, and, this is where Oxenham can be forgiven if he had, in modern terms, “freaked out”.

While Strudwick was bowling his (unknown style of) 3 overs, the man behind the stumps was the Freeman of leg-spin and googly fame. And, Oxenham was out in the second innings, st Freeman (his only stumping) b Strudwick (his only wicket) 0. This was to be a very rare example of extreme collusion and reciprocation between the spinner and the wicketkeeper over the two innings of a First-Class match, and Oxenham was destined to bear the brunt of it.

Of Bradman and Hammond

Wally Hammond and Don Bradman were the two great cricketing rivals of the 1930s and what World War II left of the 1940s. Widely acknowledged as perhaps the alpha males of batting for the traditional cricketing opponents, England and Australia, their numbers “speak like angels, trumpet-tongued” (in the words of the Bard of Avon) about their absolute mastery of the willow. Let us set aside for the moment their batting figures and examine their ancillary skills:

Hammond: 634 First-Class matches, 732 wickets with a best innings analysis of 9 for 23, 5 wickets in an innings 22 times , and 10 wickets in a match 3 times, 820 catches, and, unbelievably, 3 stumpings.

Bradman: 234 matches, 36 wickets with a best innings analysis of 3 for 35, 131 catches, and 1 stumping.
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Bradman’s single stumping episode was one that would have given him an immense vicarious pleasure. It came about in the later phase of the great man’s cricketing career, at a time when he had shifted base from Sydney to Adelaide. It was a Sheffield Shield match between New South Wales (NSW) and South Australia, played at Sydney in January 1938.

Bradman batted first, South Australia scoring 187, with only Ron Hamence (49) and the captain himself (44) doing anything worthwhile with the bat. Although South Australia wicketkeeper Charles Walker was run out for a duck in the innings, he sustained an injury that prevented him from taking up his usual duties behind the stumps.

Bradman himself took over the wicketkeeping duties. The NSW 1st-innings total was 295, and this total contained 5 byes conceded by Bradman in his unaccustomed fielding position. The 9th wicket to fall in the innings was that of Bill O’Reilly, who normally plied his trade as a fastish leg-spin and googly bowler, and with whom Bradman had shared a peculiar love-hate relationship from their mutual schoolboy days.

While the one always extolled the technical virtues of the other, there was never a genuine sense of warmth in their relationship over all the years they played their cricket, becoming even worse when O’Reilly retired and became a severe critic of Bradman in contemporary Press.

To cut a long story short, O’Reilly was dismissed st Bradman b Francis Ward 20. Bradman was to take 3 catches behind the stumps in the NSW 2nd innings of 227 for 6. The injured Walker was absent hurt for the rest of the game. Bradman also scored 104 not out in the second innings.

Hammond’s 3 instances of stumping were as follows:

Victoria vs MCC at MCG, in March 1929: In the Victoria 1st innings of 572 for 9 declared, in the absence through injury of the designated wicketkeeper Les Ames, Hammond deputised behind the stumps. The dismissal read:

John Scaife st Hammond b ‘Tich’ Freeman 18

Australian XI vs MCC at Perth, in March 1929

Although George Duckworth was the designated wicketkeeper for MCC, we find the match notes saying that Hammond kept wickets on Days Two and Three.

In the Australian XI 1st innings of 310, we find the following dismissals:

John Ellis st Hammond b ‘Tich’ Freeman 14 (oh! the irony and indignity of it!)

Ronald Halcombe st Hammond b ‘Farmer’ White 1