Bill Bowes

William Eric Bowes (25 July 1908 – 4 September 1987) was an English professional cricketer active from 1929 to 1947 who played in 372 first-class matches as a right arm fast bowler and a right-handed tail end batsman.

He took 1,639 wickets with a best performance of nine for 121 and completed ten wickets in a match 27 times.

He scored 1,531 runs with a highest score of 43* and is one of very few major players whose career total of wickets taken exceeded his career total of runs scored.

He did not rate himself as a fielder but he nevertheless held 138 catches.

Bowes played for Yorkshire and Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC).

Bill Bowes was born in Elland on 25 July 1908.

His father, John Bowes, was a railwayman whose job with the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway caused the family to relocate often.

In 1914, they settled in Armley, Leeds, after he became a goods superintendent there.

After leaving school in 1924, Bowes worked in a Leeds estate agency but continued to play cricket at weekends for a Wesleyan Sunday school team in Armley and he was the club secretary for a time.

He did this for the next two years until, just after Easter in 1927, he was invited by a casual acquaintance to join the Kirkstall Educational Cricket Club in northwest Leeds.

In his debut match for Kirkstall's second team, he took six wickets for only five runs, including a hat trick, and the spectators organised a collection for him.

Bowes now found a mentor in John Kaye, one of the club's committee members, who was to play in instrumental part in his eventual career with Yorkshire.

Bowes had a successful season with Kirkstall in 1927 and began receiving offers from other league clubs to turn professional, some of the offers being more for one match than he earned in a week at the estate agency.

However, Kaye and his colleagues were determined to keep him at Kirkstall until they could arrange for him to play professionally at county level.

However, at the end of the 1927 season, MCC announced an intention to play against all first-class counties in 1928 and wanted to increase its professional ground staff, based at Lord's Cricket Ground.

With no apparent interest from Yorkshire at this stage, an approach was made to Warwickshire and they responded by offering Bowes a trial in April 1928.

Bowes decided to apply and was invited to a trial in January 1928.

At the trial, he bowled on "a net pitch of matting laid on concrete".

Among the batsmen facing him were Pelham Warner and the MCC assistant secretary Ronnie Aird.

Bowes made a distinct impression on them which resulted in his being offered an engagement on the Lord's ground staff for the 1928 season at £5 a week.

Soon afterwards, he was contacted by Yorkshire's secretary Frederick Toone following a request to Yorkshire by John Kaye.

Toone recommended the engagement with MCC rather than Warwickshire, suggesting that Bowes would find greater scope for development at Lord's and, with Yorkshire's interests at heart, pointed out that he would be available to play for Yorkshire when not required by MCC.

Bowes was impressed and turned down the Warwickshire offer.

He quit his job at the estate agency and joined MCC on 15 April 1928, having negotiated a raise in his wage to £6 a week.

Bowes gained valuable early experience with the Lord's ground staff and was especially grateful for coaching he received from Walter Brearley.

He began his first-class career playing for MCC in 1928.

Still aged nineteen, he made his first-class debut 30 May to 1 June playing against Wales at Lord's, taking three for 37 and two for 32.

He made fifteen appearances for England in Test cricket and took part in the 1932–33 Bodyline series.

He took 68 Test wickets at the creditable average of 22.33 with a best performance of six for 33.

Bowes represented Yorkshire in thirteen County Championship seasons, his career being interrupted by the Second World War, and the team won the championship eight times in that period, largely due to their strong attack which was led by Hedley Verity and himself.

He was a member of the ground staff at MCC for ten seasons and they had priority of selection, which meant he played against Yorkshire for them and he did not play against MCC until 1938.

During the war, Bowes was commissioned in the British Army as a gunnery officer and served in North Africa until he was captured, along with over 30,000 other Allied troops, after the fall of Tobruk in June 1942.

He spent three years in Italian and German prisoner-of-war camps and lost over four stone in weight.

He continued playing for two seasons after the war but, weakened by his experiences, could only bowl at medium pace.

After he retired from playing, he became a coach with Yorkshire and worked for The Yorkshire Post as a cricket writer.

In his 1949 autobiography, Express Deliveries, Bowes says that he never had any boyhood aspiration to become a professional cricketer, rather he "just slipped into the game".

He played street cricket with other boys and he began watching the local Armley club, whose ground was near his home.

He particularly admired an Armley pace bowler called Tommy Drake and decided to copy his action so that, throughout his career as a top-class bowler, his delivery was always "as near Tommy Drake's as possible".

Bowes went on to represent his two schools, Armley Park Council School and West Leeds High School, at cricket.

At the latter, he gained his school cap after taking a hat trick.