Bill Ponsford

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bill Ponsford
Australia
Personal information
Full name	William Harold Ponsford
Nickname	Ponny
Born	19 October 1900(1900-10-19)
	Fitzroy North, Victoria, Australia
Died	6 April 1991 (aged 90)
	Kyneton, Victoria, Australia
Role	Opening batsman
Batting style	Right-hand
Bowling style	-
Test debut (cap 117)	19 December 1924: v England
Last Test	22 August 1934: v England
Domestic team information
Years	Team
1921–1934	Victoria
Career statistics
	Tests	FC
Matches	29	162
Runs scored	2122	13819
Batting average	48.22	65.18
100s/50s	7/6	47/43
Top score	266	437
Balls bowled	0	38
Wickets	0	0
Bowling average	n/a	n/a
5 wickets in innings	0	0
10 wickets in match	0	0
Best bowling	n/a	n/a
Catches/stumpings	21/0	71/0
As of 29 February 2008 Source: [[1]]

William Harold Ponsford (19 October 1900 — 6 April 1991) was a cricketer who played for Victoria and Australia. Predominately an opening batsman, Ponsford twice broke the world record for the highest first-class score. He is regarded as one of the finest players of spin bowling.

Having first played for St. Kilda at the age of fifteen, Ponsford made his first-class debut for Victoria against the touring England team in February 1921. Ironically, although he had not by that stage scored a century -- one 99 and a few sixties were as close as he came in pennant cricket --, he would soon become noted for his capacity for massive innings. After two low scores in his first match, his third innings (against Tasmania at Launceston) was 162. He did not play first-class cricket again for a year, but his next innings was a record 429, for Victoria against Tasmania at Melbourne, helping Victoria to a world record total of 1,059 runs. It was the highest individual innings in first-class cricket at the time. In December 1926, he scored 352 against New South Wales at Melbourne, 334 of them in one day, and helped Victoria to 1,107, still first-class cricket's highest team total, breaking their own record. In December 1927 he improved his own individual record, scoring 437 against Queensland. Later that month he scored 336 against South Australia. This was part of a remarkable sequence in which he scored a century in a record ten consecutive first-class matches from December 1926 to December 1927.^[1] In the 1927–28 Australian season four consecutive scores of 437, 202, 38 and 336 amounted to more than 1000 runs. Brian Lara is the only other man to have reached 400 twice in first-class cricket, and Ponsford remains one of only three men to have scored four triple-centuries, along with Donald Bradman (six) and Wally Hammond (also four). He holds the Australian record partnership for the first wicket (456 with Edgar Mayne), and for Victoria (and, intermittently, for Australia) he formed a notable opening partnership with Bill Woodfull. His first-class career average of 65.18 is the fourth highest of any player with 10,000 runs.

Ponsford made his Test match debut in December 1924, scoring 110 against a bowling attack that included Maurice Tate and Tich Freeman. It was, he said, the hardest-earned century of his career -- mainly due to Tate's late swing and deceptive velocity off the deck. But, with the assistance of Herbie Collins, who kept him from Tate which such success as to drive that bowler mad, Ponsford made the perfect start to his Test career. He followed this with 128 in the Second Test.

Injury and illness perhaps prevented him scaling similar heights to his achievements in domestic cricket; although he succeeded against the touring West Indies in 1930-31, he averaged only 19.40 in the bodyline series against England. While he was a fine player against spin bowling -- Bill O'Reilly believed that he had a greater chance against Bradman than Ponsford --, he was less comfortable against pace. In 1928-29, however, he was left to rue some ill-chosen words when Harold Larwood, after dismissing him for two and six in the First Test, fractured a bone in his hand in the Second. "Larwood," Ponford's newspaper column had declared, "is not really a fast bowler!"^[2]

In 1934, Ponsford and Bradman, the two heaviest scorers in Australian cricket, finally fulfilled their joint promise by combining in two major partnerships. At Leeds they added 388 for the fourth wicket (Ponsford scoring 181), then a record for any wicket, and in the next Test at The Oval they bettered it by sharing 451 for the second wicket (Ponsford scored 266). This partnership remained the world record for any wicket in Test cricket until 1991, and remains the Australian record. Curiously Ponsford was out hit wicket in both these innings. Ponsford's batting suffered nothing in comparison with Bradman's among contemporary commentators, including Neville Cardus. Ponsford retired after the Australians' tour, and thus had signed off with a hundred in each of his last two Tests, just as he had signed on with a hundred in each of his first two. After his success in his last series he was named one of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1935.

"Whichever way you look at the Ponsford record," wrote Jack Fingleton, "he was a truly great player. He crouched a little at the crease, the peak of his cap pulled characteristically towards his left ear; he tapped the ground impatiently with his bat while awaiting the ball, and his feet were so eager to be on the move that they began an impulsive move forward just before the ball was bowled. This was the shuffle that sometimes took him across the pitch against a fast bowler; but, that aside, his footwork was perfection. I never saw a better forcer of the ball to the on-side, and for this stroke his body moved beautifully into position [...]. He was, I think, the best all-round batsman Victoria has ever produced."^[3]

Among his myriad foibles was his fondness for his bat, "Big Bertha", and the colour vision deficiency, deuteranopia, of which he only learnt after his playing days were over. A baffled medico asked him how he had been able to secernate red ball from green grass all those years -- especially after the former had lost its lacquer. "Well," came the reply, "I suppose I always knew that a ball was red at the start of an innings. When it became worn, I never worried about what colour it was -- only how big it looked to me."^[4]

Ponsford died at Kyneton, Victoria. At 90 years and 169 days he was the oldest living Test cricketer at the time of his death.

[edit] References

Fingleton, Jack: Masters of Cricket: From Trumper to May (Heinemann, 1958).

[edit] External links

• Cricinfo page on Bill Ponsford

v • d • e Australia squad - Australian Cricket Board Team of the Century 1 Bill Ponsford • 2 Arthur Morris • 3 Don Bradman (c) • 4 Greg Chappell • 5 Neil Harvey • 6 Keith Miller (vc)  • 7 Ian Healy (wk) • 8 Ray Lindwall • 9 Shane Warne • 10 Dennis Lillee • 11 Bill O'Reilly • 12 Allan Border (12th)