Norman Yardley
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 England (Eng) |
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| Batting style | Right-handed batsman (RHB) | |
| Bowling type | Right arm medium | |
| Tests | First-class | |
| Matches | 20 | 446 |
| Runs scored | 812 | 18173 |
| Batting average | 25.37 | 31.17 |
| 100s/50s | 0/4 | 27/83 |
| Top score | 99 | 183* |
| Balls bowled | 1662 | 21080 |
| Wickets | 21 | 279 |
| Bowling average | 33.66 | 30.48 |
| 5 wickets in innings | 0 | 5 |
| 10 wickets in match | 0 | 0 |
| Best bowling | 3/67 | 6/29 |
| Catches/stumpings | 14/0 | 328/1 |
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Test debut: 24 December 1938 |
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Norman Walter Dransfield Yardley (born 19 March 1915 in Barnsley, Yorkshire, died 3 October 1989 in Sheffield, Yorkshire) was an English cricketer. He played for Cambridge University, Yorkshire and England, as a right-handed batsman. He captained Yorkshire (1948-1955) and England on 14 occasions, winning 4 times, losing 7 and drawing 3. Yardley was named Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1948 and he retired in 1955. He was a commentator for Test Match Special from 1956 to 1973.
A highly talented all round sportsman, he won Blues at cricket, squash, rugby fives and hockey at Cambridge, and was North of England squash champion six times. Having made a name as a schoolboy cricketer as St Peter's, York, he excelled in the Varsity matches of 1935 to 1938, scoring 90 in his second game and 101 in the third. His friend and fellow Yorkshire and England cricketer Paul Gibb made 122 in the fourth, when Yardley was skipper.
He made his Yorkshire debut in 1936 and played for the white rose until 1955. He was a steadying influence in the middle order who could turn his hand to workmanlike medium-pacers when conditions suited. Despite his all round skills, he also held 220 catches, he is best remembered for his captaincy of both county and country. His task at Yorkshire was the more difficult of the two, as the dressing room contained its usual quota of determined personalities, but he led his team to the Championship in 1949, shared with Middlesex CCC, and took second four times in the next six years.
He was England's 12th man in the home series against Australia before being picked for MCC's tour of South Africa. He made his Test debut at Johannesburg in the first Test but scored only 7 and did not bowl and World War 2 intervened before he could cement a place in the side. He served as an officer in the Green Howards in the Middle East and Italy and was wounded in the Western Desert campaign.
He was vice captain for Wally Hammond's ill starred post war tour of Australia and made his name by dismissing Don Bradman in three successive innings, although Bradman had scored 234 at Sydney before his first downfall. Yardley then snared him twice at Melbourne, where he took five wickets in the match and scored 61 and 53 not out, the first England player to score two half-centuries and take five wickets in a Test match.
In the aging Hammond's absence from the final test Yardley stepped up to captain and he led England through the next two home series, beating South Africa 3-0 in 1947 but losing 4 nil to the 1948 'Invincibles'. He made his highest test score at Trent Bridge against South Africa but fell just one short of his ton, while he took nine wickets against the rampant Australians at 22.67 to head the averages.
He missed the 1948-49 South African tour and 1949 home series against New Zealand, but was appointed captain in the first three Tests against West Indies in 1950. England lost the second at Lord's, the West Indies first Test win on English soil, and Freddie Brown took over for the fourth test and following tour of Australia. Yardley played on for Yorkshire until 40. In all first-class cricket he scored 18,173 runs at 31.17, with 183 not out against Hampshire at Headingley in 1951 the highest of his 27 centuries. His 279 wickets cost 30.49 with a best of 6 for 29 for MCC against Cambridge in 1946.
He maintained his close involvement in the game and was chairman of Test selectors in 1951 and 1952. His journalism and broadcasting was much admired, with his autobiography, Cricket Campaigns, published in 1950 and the co-authored Homes of Sport: Cricket in 1952. He held office at Yorkshire CCC through some of their most turbulent times and was President of Yorkshire CCC at the time of his death.
| Preceded by: W.R.Hammond G.O.Allen F.G.Mann |
English national cricket captain 1947 1948 1950 |
Followed by: G.O.Allen F.G.Mann F.R.Brown |
