Interest in Bresnan as Derbyshire play waiting game

Whisper it quietly but we might yet see some county cricket this summer...

With county friendlies being announced around the country at the end of July, the thinking money is that there will be some proper cricket to enjoy from the start of August.

Enjoyed at a distance, it is fair to say, as I see no likelihood of crowds being allowed this summer, so we must all be dependent on the excellent streams around the country, together with whatever coverage Sky can put together of the tournaments played.

Like the rest of you, I will be fascinated to see the fixture lists and hope that I am able to see a lot of what is played, whether working from home or on my days off.

I also understand that the county is interested in acquiring the services of Tim Bresnan, who recently announced that he was leaving Yorkshire at the end of 2020. It will be quite a wrench for the player, who has spent his entire career with the white rose county, but he appears to be looking for a new challenge and would be a fine asset to Derbyshire in 2021 and beyond.

It would be an excellent signing but there will be stiff opposition around the country. If it becomes a bidding war, then he won't be making a short journey south, because we simply cannot compete on those terms. If, however, the player values staying where he is and not moving home, as well as a challenge of taking the club on to the next level, then there will be appeal in the Derbyshire offer.

Other options may well be Durham, also handy for the player, as well as Sussex, where he could link up again with his old county coach, Jason Gillespie.

He will not lack offers, that's for sure.

Presumably our interest suggests that this will be the final year for Ravi Rampaul, who will be 36 when next summer starts. He showed last summer that he was still a force to be reckoned with, but time moves on and two years can make a big difference to a seam bowler. His contract is up at the end of the summer, but it would be surprising to see him return in 2021, especially with Sam Conners and Michael Cohen needing opportunity to allow their undoubted potential to flourish.

His Kolpak status will end with that contract and we have already said that this year's signings for the overseas roles, Ben McDermott and Sean Abbott will return in 2021 (Covid and commitments permitting). 

Postscript: the club has now announced that pre-season training will start next week, with a hoped for season start of the beginning of August. 

Encouraging news! 

In My Mind's Eye number 8: Bill Bestwick (1875-1938)

In the course of my interviews with the late Walter Goodyear for my second book, the legendary former groundsman told me that he had got to know Bill Bestwick in his later years, when the former county stalwart had a flat overlooking the County Ground at Derby. The thought that with one man I was linked with nineteenth century cricket has stayed with me, just as the tales that Walter told me always will.

I have always felt that if there was ever to be a film made on the life of one Derbyshire-born player, Bestwick would be the likely subject. Had it been done a few years back, I always saw Alan Bates, a Derby man himself and wonderful actor, as perfect for the role as the 'bad boy of Derbyshire cricket'. Because for all of his talents on a cricket field, Bill was an alcoholic and created plenty of problems off of it.

I am so pleased to hear that Mick Pope's biography of the player should see the light of day next year, because it is very much a tale worth telling in all of its entirety, or in every gory detail, if you will.

He was a wonderful bowler and, as described by the former county secretary Will Taylor, 'a great-hearted and very pleasant individual, a wonderful trier - but he had his faults, as a good many of us have and he gave us, through his thirst, some very difficult moments'. Years later the Derbyshire all rounder Les Townsend would recall 'I was always scared of him, but not his bowling. He never bounced them around your ears but he was a fine bowler'.

Mick's book will doubtless tell the many tales of his life in the detail that is warranted, but here I want to recognise his worthy place in the discussions on any great Derbyshire quick bowler.

He was born in 1875 at Tag Hill, Heanor and was working at the pit by the time he was eleven. Later in life he would say that he never felt tired. 'You see, I had plenty of hard work as a youngster and after that, bowling all day in a cricket match feels like nothing.'

He made his county debut in 1898, though continued to work down the pit in the winter as an insurance policy. He developed slowly, like so many others, and took a short run for someone of his pace. It got shorter still in later years, yet he still surprised batsmen with his pace, which was generated by his massive shoulders and physical strength. The photograph that accompanies this article is one of my favourites and he must have been an imposing sight as he ran in for over after over.

In 1900 there were 5 five-wicket innings, 2 ten-wicket matches. He increased this to six in 1902, then ten and eleven in 1905 and 1906, in each of which seasons he passed a hundred wickets. Good judges regarded him as a better bowler than Arnold Warren, who was selected for England, but there were question marks over his fielding, which was never good and his batting, which was even worse. Indeed, in his last 280 first-class innings he failed to reach twenty, his career-highest 39 made in 1900.

Yet as a bowler, he was special. His captains could effectively leave him on to bowl at one end, almost without any sign of tiring. He would bowl in excess of 800 overs a season and was a potent weapon.

Then it all went wrong. His wife died in 1906, leaving him with a son, Robert and the drinking got worse. In 1907 he was charged with manslaughter after a Heanor man, William Brown, attacked him with a carving knife, following a pub argument at the Jolly Colliers Inn there. Brown was later found dead  by 'severance of the main blood vessel of the neck'. Bestwick only learned of it when being treated for cuts and slashes to the face at his brother's house nearby. The account in the Derbyshire Advertiser for February 1 1907 makes for harrowing reading, but it seems clear that the verdict of 'justifiable homicide' was correct, Bestwick acting in self-defence after being attacked and slashed to the face and hands by a man who mistakenly felt he was having an affair with his wife.

In 1909, tired of his excesses, despite 178 wickets in the two preceding seasons, Derbyshire dispensed with his services. A fresh start was called for and after a brief spell as professional at Nelson in the Lancashire League, terminated early because of a breach of discipline, Billy went to South Wales, where he remarried and worked in the colliery, playing for Glamorgan in the Minor Counties in 1914.

That should have been the end of the story, but in 1919 he was invited to return to Derbyshire, with cricketers of ability in short supply after the Great War. He took 90 wickets, but then returned to play for Glamorgan in 1920, before agreeing to another Derbyshire return in 1921.

He was 46 when the 1921 season began. By the end of it, through sheer physical strength and considerable skill he had taken 147 wickets and bowled over 900 overs. Seventeen times he took five wickets in an innings, still and always likely to be a county record. Against Glamorgan at Cardiff he took all ten wickets for only forty runs, he and Tommy Mitchell remaining the only men to do so in the club's rich history.

Despite all of this he was an unreformed character. Arthur Morton was deputed to look after him on the dangerous away trips, but Billy managed to evade him more than once. The game before that was at Bristol and he was rendered incapable by a couple of late night sessions there. He was even considered a doubtful starter at Cardiff, but he declared himself fit and George Buckston, his captain, asked him to open the bowling.

He took a wicket with his fifth ball and clean bowled seven of his victims, taking all ten wickets before lunch in just nineteen overs. While perhaps not understanding the mentality, one can only admire the constitution that allowed that.

He never changed. The following year he was left out of the team at Worcester after another night out, but recovered sufficiently to pay his own way into the ground and barrack his own side. In that year he came close to a hundred wickets again, as he did in 1923. Only in his last two seasons did the haul decline, but he was fifty in 1925, had a season best of 7-20 and still took his 35 wickets at just fifteen runs each.

He enjoyed the company of his son, Robert, in the side of 1922, though his spell in the county game was short and only two games. Thereafter Bill became a first-class umpire, standing in 238 matches including three Tests.

He died on May 2, 1938 at Nottingham General Hospital. Cancer finally claimed the man with the iron constitution and the tributes from around the country were testimony to his talent. Only Les Jackson and Cliff Gladwin have exceeded his 1452 wickets for the county. Only Tommy Mitchell and Les Jackson have exceeded his 104 five-wicket hauls. No one is likely to better that 10-40 analysis.

He really was that good, yet modestly recalled late in life 'I just concentrated on making the batsman play and aimed to hit the stumps every time'.

(Image sourced courtesy of David Griffin from the Derbyshire CCC Archive)

In My Mind's Eye Number 7: Arthur Morton (1883-1935)

Arthur Morton, from Mellor in the High Peak SOUNDED like a Derbyshire player.

It was his unfortunate lot to be born and become one at a time when we had a side that was as weak as at any point in history, to lose some of his best seasons to the Great War and to die in the December of the year before we became county champions.

All things considered, fate was not favourable to Arthur, but such blunt assertions mask the fact that he was a cricketer of considerable fortitude and ability. As a batsman he was dogged and diligent - you don't do aggression when the next collapse is only a wicket away. He was a man for a crisis, in much the same way that Fred Swarbrook would be years later, the averages similar, though Arthur was a right-hander. He was good enough to score six centuries, as well as 45 half centuries, the scorecards and reports of the period confirming that there was no real surprise in the partial or full resurrection of an innings when he was at the crease. Most of his runs came in front of the wicket, making him a firm fan favourite. He eschewed risk, but a bad ball was punished. He was a firm fan favourite, 'good old Arthur' and he was one of the few certain selections at a dark time in our history.

The Derbyshire batting was brittle, the onus on the bowlers, to give any chance of a win, to take wickets and concede as few runs as possible. That may sound a case of stating the obvious, but in the era after the war, until his retirement in 1926, there were rarely runs to play with. In his first-class career Arthur took 981 wickets and conceded around 2.5 runs per over. There were 63 five-wicket hauls and eleven ten-wicket matches, as he became an opponent to be respected, regardless of the quality of the rest. His partnership with Bill Bestwick, fast medium seam at one end and slow medium off spin at the other, was a precursor to the 'brimstone and treacle' of Bill Copson and Tommy Mitchell that enabled the success of the side a decade or so later. Contemporary reports say that he had 'several variations' with his off spin and he rarely failed to capitalise on favourable conditions.

Indeed, there were occasions when the two WERE the Derbyshire attack, such as at Worcester in 1921. The home side were dismissed for 214 in 95 overs shortly after tea, with Bill bowling 43 and Arthur 42 overs. It was far from a unique instance of Morton going above and beyond the call of duty. In 1914, against Yorkshire at Chesterfield he scored 50 in an all out home total of 68, in scoring 73.53% of the total setting a county record that is still to be beaten.

He made his first appearance in 1903 and there was a slow and steady improvement until he burst forth in 1910. Bestwick had been sacked for misconduct the previous year, leaving the attack even weaker, but Morton took 116 wickets that summer, a figure only previously beaten once in the county history. He chipped in with useful runs too and in the summer before war broke out, in 1914, passed a thousand runs in the season for the first time. There were just too many occasions when we needed another ten like him.

Only in two seasons, one of them 1919 when like everyone else he hadn't played for four years, did his bowling average exceed 23. He took 89 wickets in the awful summer of 1920, when Derbyshire failed to win a match and again took a hundred wickets in 1922. The output was reduced by a motorbike accident in which he suffered broken ribs in 1921, riding as a passenger on the motorbike of Yorkshire's Abe Waddington on the first evening of the fixture between the two sides at Hull. He was ruled out of the rest of the match, as well as several to follow and with Gilbert Curgenven also injured, the second innings amounted to only 23 runs. Bestwick, now returned, gave half of a recent collection to Morton to partially compensate him for lost earnings.

The two were good friends, Morton given the onerous task of keeping Bestwick out of trouble on away trips, a task he appears to have fulfilled with the diligent professionalism of his cricket, if not always with the same success. He was also a talented golfer and billiard player, becoming a respected first-class umpire when his playing days were over.

His bad luck continued in 1924, when his benefit match at Chesterfield was ruined by the weather and he earned 'only a couple of hundred pounds.' It would have been accepted with the shrug of the shoulders that supporters had come to know well.

He died at Mellor after a long illness on December 18, 1935. It was one week after being appointed to the list of umpires for what would become Derbyshire's championship season.

He would have enjoyed that. With 10,813 runs and 966 wickets in the county colours he had established himself as one of its finest all-rounders, as well as one of its most popular cricketers.

(Image sourced courtesy of David Griffin from the Derbyshire CCC Archive)

In My Mind's Eye number 6: William Storer (1868-1912)

I was first drawn to the name of William Storer because he was born at Ripley, like me. As a youngster I recall my Dad taking me to see his grave, though at that stage I knew little of his reputation or talent. Nor of his nature, because William, or Bill as he was more commonly known, was another member of a late nineteenth century team that suffered fools somewhat unwillingly.

In a dressing room full of strong characters, only the strong survived. Perhaps it accounted for the later decline of the county's fortunes up to the Great War, because many a talented young local player broke into the county side but failed to realise their promise. Bill Storer was one who got into the side as a Daryn Smit-style all-rounder. He was a fine batsman, good enough to become the first professional to score a hundred in each innings of a first-class match. He was a good enough wicket-keeper to play for England, while on occasion he could bowl leg breaks that turned a considerable distance. He took five wickets in an innings on four occasions, and over 200 first-class wickets confirms him as huge asset to a team, whatever role he played in it.

He was born at Butterley Hill, Ripley on January 25, 1867 and played for Butterley Cricket Club with considerable early success. He was only nineteen when he made his Derbyshire debut, though the step to the senior game proved problematic for a couple of seasons. Once he was tried behind the stumps, in 1890, he never looked back and became a key member of the side.His style behind the timbers was unusual, because he stood up to the wicket, regardless of the bowler's pace, his style perhaps similar to that of Karl Krikken in not crouching as the bowler ran in to bowl. He even stood up to Charles Kortright, reckoned the fastest of the day, and earned lavish praise in 1893 at Lord's, playing for the MCC against the Australians, when he held four catches, stumped another and didn't allow a single bye, even with the Essex man bowling.

His first great summer was 1896, when he scored over 1200 runs at an average in excess of fifty, including that two-century match against the powerful Yorkshire side of the period. When George Davidson scored his 274 against Lancashire, his own century aided in a partnership of 308 for the third wicket. He passed a thousand runs for the season in seven successive summers, making him perhaps the best wicket-keeper batsman to play for the county. He frequently headed the county batting averages and was often near the top of the national figures too, as well as maintaining a high standard behind the stumps.

He toured Australia in 1897-98 and in the words of commentators, only MacLaren and Ranji batted better than him. He did himself no favours, however, by running out the Australian batsman Charlie McLeod, who was deaf, and walked off after being yorked by Tom Richardson and failing to hear the no ball call. Storer shouted for the ball, which had gone down to third man, to be thrown in and removed a stump, the batsman declining MacLaren's offer of reinstatement. In the final Test he told the umpire 'You're a cheat and you know it', which resulted in censure by the MCC. They needed no further reason not to pick him.

At county level he could be hot-headed too. In a game against Essex at Leyton in 1895, he refused to play when his brother, Harry was omitted from the team. When play began he had still not left the team hotel, but eventually arrived and took his place. His protest continued, pulling his hands away to allow byes, and kicking balls for overthrows. Eventually the captain, Sydney Evershed asked Levi Wright what he should do, being told to send him off. Evershed, who appears to have been a considerate man, replied 'But what of his future'? and likely had a quiet word. Storer cooled down and subsequently kept wicket brilliantly, holding five catches.

Ill-health caused him to retire prematurely, in 1900, at the early age of 33. Having lost George Davidson the previous year, the detrimental impact on the county can be imagined. The club awarded him the Yorkshire fixture at Chesterfield in 1902 as a benefit, but life was thereafter a struggle for William, his wife and their five children.

He suffered from dropsy, or oedema as it is now known, usually a sign of congestive heart failure, liver or kidney problems. Poor diet can also be a contributory factor and his declining health eventually saw surgery to relieve the build up of fluid in the legs and ankles as the disease took hold. Fluid build up in the abdominal cavity often sees the patient 'tapped' to remove the pressure on internal organs, but Bill Storer must have been in considerable pain in his last years.

He died in Derby on February 28, 1912, not too long after his 45th birthday. He was buried at Ripley Cemetery on March 2, in a grave next to his brother Harry, who had pre-deceased him by four years and had only reached the age of 37. His county cricket career was limited to five matches, but he played football as goalkeeper for both Arsenal and Liverpool.

Harry's son of the same name became a gritty and long-time opener for Derbyshire, as well as a footballer and football manager worthy of a book in his own right. He was one of  small handful of men to represent both Derbyshire at cricket and Derby County at football, going on to manage the Rams for a long time too.

Both clubs sent wreaths to the funeral, which was attended by William Chatterton, Walter Sugg, Joe Humphries and the club secretary, Will Taylor, among many others. It was another sad and premature end to a cricket life and career that made a large contribution to the county side.

It would be some time before someone of comparable talent was to appear in the county colours.

(Image sourced courtesy of David Griffin from the Derbyshire CCC Archive)

The best eleven I have seen

Using the same selection criteria as Stephen Malkin, whose idea it was, here is the best county eleven of my time watching Derbyshire.

Kim Barnett
Peter Bowler
John Morris
Wayne Madsen
Chris Adams
Eddie Barlow (captain)
Dominic Cork
Geoff Miller
Bob Taylor
Mike Hendrick
Harold Rhodes

There are some wonderful players who have given me great pleasure and entertainment outside that eleven. I would have loved to include Billy Godleman, several other overseas stars, Ole Mortensen, Devon Malcolm, Graeme Welch and many more, but of course you can only play eleven.

The batting largely picks itself and what a top six! Most of my vintage will pick Barnett, Bowler, Morris and Adams, while Wayne Madsen has played some astonishing innings for us, over many years. The ebullient Barlow, a game-changer and captain nonpareil at six, before two contrasting England all-rounders.

The greatest of them all behind the timbers and his number of victims would grow with an opening attack of Hendrick and Rhodes. I enjoyed all of Mike's career, while in seeing only the last few years of Harold's, realising what a bowler he must have been in his absolute prime.

Bowling? After those two there's Cork and Barlow, Miller for the spin and Madsen, along with Barnett, for support.

If I had four days of cricket watching left, I would take that side, all in their prime, to handle anything thrown at it.

MY Derbyshire. As usual, I welcome your comments, if only to say what an awesome team that would be.

PS I would have Fred Swarbrook as my twelfth man. A character, a very good spinner, dogged batsman and top professional. There might be the odd game when we needed a second spinner and Fred, in his pomp, was very good indeed.

Over to you

A nice idea came this week from Stephen Malkin, who wrote as follows:

Hi Peakfan,

How about asking your readers to pick a Derbyshire XI from their time watching Derbyshire?

I have been a member since 1983, although I was first taken by my father to watch Derbyshire v Gloucestershire at Burton-on-Trent in 1969, the first year of the Sunday League, 

Including only one overseas player, my team would be: K Barnett, P Bowler, J Morris, C Adams, D Jones, D Cork, G Miller, P De Freitas, K Krikken, K Dean, D Malcolm. 

This would be a team to win the County Championship, my only reservation that there isn’t a left handed batsman. They might not get on, but as was shown in 1996 on the field they had the utmost respect for each other. If Dean Jones had been a bit more ruthless towards the end of that season, particularly the game away against Somerset, they would have won the league. 

Of my team the openers record speaks for itself KB in my opinion Derbyshire’s greatest ever player John Morris on his day the finest English batsman of the modern era to play for Derbyshire ,Chris Adams again on his day not far behind. Dean Jones to drive them on with his motivation as well as being a great batsman, the three all rounders all played Test cricket for England with around  3000 first class wickets between them. Krikk was unorthodox and brilliant, some of his catches standing goalkeeper style  to the quicks were unbelievable. Kevin Dean had the rare ability as a left arm bowler to move the ball very late both ways. 

I picked Devon over Ole Mortensen because Devon was that rare bowler who got better with age at 35 he was twice the bowler he was at 25 with very little reduction in pace. This bowling attack had enough variety to bowl sides out on most pitches especially with Jones getting behind them and driving them on.

That's a nice idea, Stephen. While recognising that younger readers will have less options, I would love to see and publish your ideas. Please email them to peakfan36@yahoo.co.uk

Mine will be up in the coming days.

So tired, tired of waiting, tired of waiting for you...

Today's title comes courtesy of Ray Davies and the wonderful Kinks.

My feelings on the absence of cricket are amply illustrated in that line. You really don't realise what you have until it isn't there any more and while my garden has benefited from the absence of cricket and football from my life, I miss it badly.

I hope you are enjoying my pieces on the early heroes of the club, as much as I enjoyed reading more about them in contemporary articles in the British Newspaper Archive online. It helped me to get a better 'handle' on them and turned them from names and players into people. In the process I found a lot of stuff that I never knew and I hope that they have been of some value and interest for you.

Most of my blog week, such as it is, has been taken up by someone from overseas who keeps trying to post spam through the comments boxes. He/she must have tried fifty times this week to post the same thing, taking up however much time. If they are reading this, please save yourself some time, because the filtering on Blogger is excellent and easy to use. It takes me less than five seconds to tick two boxes and delete them, because I don't want anything on the site that isn't relevant to the game and specifically Derbyshire's place in it.

In other news, I came across a nice piece on Twitter earlier, which asked who you modelled your bowling action on as a child.

Mine was easy.

Between the ages of ten and fourteen I wanted to be Alan Ward, whose upright action, flowing run and arch back, prior to releasing a thunderbolt, was a thing of magnificence. In trying to replicate it, I realised that I was around a foot too short for authenticity, not to mention about forty miles an hour. At the start of a net session, or my first spell in a game, I would run in to release my weapons of mass destruction, usually to the detriment of line and length. Once I had it out of my system, and my back started to hurt, I settled down to something more sedate, considerably more accurate and a lot more effective.

After waking up too many next mornings with back ache, I realised another role model was required and I became Eddie Barlow (pictured). This was far more authentic, as I had the requisite glasses for one thing and Eddie was far from fast. I even cultivated the mopping of my brow with a forearm, which Eddie did, while attempting to fix any batsman who hit me for four with a basilisk stare worthy of the great man.

I got my share of wickets in school and club matches, but my batting style was more Alan Hill than Barlow. The chances of my scoring a hundred between lunch and tea were slightly less than my being the winning horse in the Grand National, even if I did surprise team mates in one match by putting the first ball of the innings over mid wicket for six. Slow and steady did it, even though my boundaries always, to me at least, had the natural flair of the Cape...

He is one of the many Derbyshire players I would have loved to know and am sure that I would have emerged from the encounter the better for it. Not one contemporary has ever had a bad word to say about him and his contribution to them and the club.

Which is why, when the club asked about our greatest overseas player earlier in the week, my answer was unhesitating. Peter Kirsten was brilliant, and the best batsman I have seen in county colours, while John Wright was less flamboyant but not far behind. Barlow brought them both to Derbyshire and his example transformed a club that was dying.

Before Barlow, you always got the impression that we went into matches hoping not to lose. There was plenty of grit, not too much flamboyance and precious few wins between 1971 and 1975. If it happened it was a special individual performance, but when Eddie arrived, and especially when he became captain, the whole ethos changed.

Derbyshire went into matches EXPECTING to win. We didn't always, but the wins became more common, the young players developed confidence under a skipper who oozed it and the cricket became purposeful, aggressive and dynamic.

In three all-too-short years he transformed the club. As my Dad said, as we watched him look every bit as good as Sobers while playing for the Rest of the World in 1970, 'If we signed that fella there'd be no stopping us'.

Like a lot of other times, he was right. Had we managed to get him then, rather than five years down the line, who knows what we might have achieved?

Barlow was the best. It was an absolute privilege to see him.

In My Mind's Eye Number 5: Arnold Warren (1875-1951)

Will Taylor was the secretary of Derbyshire CCC for 51 years, between 1908 and 1959. In his later days - and he lived until 1976 - he was happy to tell anyone who listened that the fastest bowler he had seen in the county colours was Arnold Warren. 

Considering the many fine names who appeared for Derbyshire in the intervening period, that is an impressive, informed opinion. It was not held by Taylor alone, however, as plenty of good judges in the era before the Great War declared Warren the fastest bowler in the country.

Descriptions of his run up and action remind me of Alan Ward, another who was upright, fluent and tall, not to mention lightning fast. Batting gloves and protective wear had moved on a little by that time, so one can only imagine the consternation when Warren, like Ward, first burst onto the scene, rattling barely-protected knuckles and ribs with balls that lifted, when ordinary bowlers struggled to get any bounce.

Warren came from Codnor, where his father and sons had a successful building firm. Some of those houses can still be seen today, but Arnold saw a career in sport as his first choice, after some fine performances in local cricket. He played his early cricket on the ground of the Butterley Company and made his first appearance for Derbyshire in 1897. It wasn't until 1902, after a decent apprenticeship, that he became established in the side, matching increased accuracy to the pace that was always there. 

His breakthrough year was 1904, when he became the first Derbyshire bowler to take a hundred wickets in a Championship season, taking 124 in 22 matches. Had there been Test matches that summer he may well have earned recognition. The Athletic News in August 1904 said that 'no bowler currently playing has anything like the devil, or break on a plumb wicket [combining] unplayable length with very sharp break back'. It also said that he 'would take many more wickets but for the poor fielding of his county' and suggested that England honours may be near.

That was to come in 1905, when the Australians were the visitors. He had earlier impressed the England captain, Yorkshire's F.S. Jackson, with match figures of 12-126 against his county and Warren was brought in for the third Test at Headingley.

In 19.2 overs he took 5-57, including the prize wicket of Victor Trumper, as well as Monty Noble, Joe Darling (the Australian captain) and Warwick Armstrong. Good wickets all and when he followed this with the wicket of Trumper again in the second innings he would have been excused for thinking he had done well.

He was never selected for his country again.

His second innings bowling was noticeably less menacing, according to reports of the time and the story ran that Warren, partial to alcohol like his team mate, Bill Bestwick, had "over-celebrated" with friends after his first innings heroics. He wasn't the only fast bowler on the circuit to enjoy the offerings of the beer tents and hostelries, but it offered too easy an excuse to exclude him in the future.

He could bat too and with his captain, John Chapman, he shared in a world record partnership for the ninth wicket of 283, against Warwickshire at Blackwell in 1910. They saved a game that looked hopelessly lost, though Warren too often got carried away with his hitting to repeat the century that he scored that day. Contemporary reports refer to him 'batting strongly', all too often appended 'but fleetingly'...

A strange accident in which he got ammonia fumes in his eyes while uncorking the bottle saw him admitted to Derby Infirmary in 1911, where only prompt medical attention as an in-patient prevented any detrimental effect on his sight. He played on for Derbyshire until 1913 (aside from a fleeting appearance in 1920) and a few lunchtime whiskies in the refreshment tent at Leicester in 1912 revived his spirits sufficiently for a devastating spell of 7-52 in 24 overs that won the game. That appetite for alcohol was more often having a detrimental effect, however and brushes with the law and a period of destitution saw him released at the age of 38.

He lied about his age and served in the Great War, where  he joined the Royal Garrison Artillery in 1915. He was badly wounded in 1917, suffering fractures to his neck, spine and right shoulder blade. Despite several months in hospital, he suffered constant pain thereafter, that one appearance in 1920 a minor miracle  in the circumstances. 

He umpired in first-class cricket through the 1920s and early 1930s and worked as a bricklayer at Ormonde Colliery until he retired in 1945. His personal life saw tragedy, the birth of a son, Martin, in 1906 tempered by the death of his wife the same year, after which he lived alone. He died in September 1951 and was buried in Crosshill Cemetery in Codnor, the mourners including Will Taylor and Denis Smith.

With Bill Bestwick he made up one of the finest, if least temperate  opening attacks in the county's history. On his day, he must have been quite spectacular to watch.

939 wickets at 24 runs each confirms his place in the local cricketing pantheon.

(Image sourced courtesy of David Griffin from the Derbyshire CCC Archive)