Ted Wainwright
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 England (Eng) |
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| Batting style | Right-handed batsman (RHB) | |
| Bowling type | Right-arm slow | |
| Tests | First-class | |
| Matches | 5 | 391 |
| Runs scored | 132 | 12,513 |
| Batting average | 14.66 | 21.76 |
| 100s/50s | 0/0 | 19/48 |
| Top score | 49 | 228 |
| Balls bowled | 127 | 46,636 |
| Wickets | 0 | 1,071 |
| Bowling average | n/a | 18.24 |
| 5 wickets in innings | 0 | 63 |
| 10 wickets in match | 0 | 15 |
| Best bowling | n/a | 9/66 |
| Catches/stumpings | 2/0 | 353/0 |
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Test debut: 17 July 1893 |
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Ted Wainwright (or Edward Wainwright; born April 8, 1865, Tinsley, Sheffield, Yorkshire, England; died October 28, 1919, Sheffield) was a Yorkshire all-rounder who helped establish the county at the top of the tree under Lord Hawke during the early years of official County Championship cricket.
Wainwright will be forever remembered for gaining the lowest bowling average in the history of the County Championship - 10.17 for 97 wickets in 1894, a summer of very many sticky wickets. On these wickets, he would bowl a perfect length and his spin was such that the ball, "popping" from the crust of the turf, would gain so much pace that not even the most technically correct batsman could hope to stay long. However, Wainwright never had any sting on hard pitches: he did not take a single wicket in his five Test matches against Australia. In many ways a better batsman than bowler, Wainwright suffered from perennial inconsistency in this department, but on his day could play many brilliant innings characterised by powerful hitting. Among the best was his 116 which won a critical game against Kent in 1900. In fielding, Wainwright excelled more than in batting or bowling as a close catcher: along with John Tunicliffe he gave vital and extremely consistent support to Yorkshire's powerful attacks, holding 42 catches in 1895.
Wainwright first played for Yorkshire in 1888 and immediately established his place in the side, chiefly through an innings of 105 against the Australians when Turner was for once mastered. He developed slowly over the next couple of years, but an irresistible performance on a sticky wicket at Sheffield in 1891 was the performance that established Wainwright as a deadly soft-wicket bowler. Wainwright showed no advancement upon his first as a batsman until 1893, when he got close to doing the "double" and played his first Test at Lord's without success. As bowler, Wainwright was Yorkshire's leading wicket-taker in 1892, though they fared only modestly, and in 1893, aided by some very bad wickets due to an abnormally dry spring, he took 90 wickets for 12.55 each to win Yorkshire its first Championship after they had been second last in 1891. By this time he and Bobby Peel were the finest slow bowling partnership in county cricket, and they were invariably unplayable when the wicket helped them.
In 1894, the wettest summer for some years, Wainwright was almost unplayable in most matches. Against Sussex, he took 5 wickets in 7 balls and finished with 13 for 38; when at Lord's against Middlesex he took 10 for 63 and at Sheffield against Surrey 12 for 108. However, his harmlessness on the best pitch of the season at The Oval made sure, despite his figures, that he was not chosen for the Ashes tour that winter. 1895 was disappointing as a batsman and bowler - especially as Wainwright should have been utterly unplayable on most of the wickets in August - but his excellent fielding made him still a vital member of Yorkshire's eleven. In the dry summer of 1896 he recaptured his ability to ruthlessly exploit the few sticky wickets and got closer to a thousand runs than ever before.
In 1897, though expensive if hard-working (due to Peel's dispute with Yorkshire's committee) as a bowler, Wainwright leaped to the front rank among batsmen so much that he hit five centuries and was named for the 1897/1898 Ashes tour in that capacity. However, he again did not do anything in the Tests, and though Wainwright was as unplayable as ever on wet pitches early in 1898 he was little used when the pitches improved after mid-June. 1899 saw Wainwright again of little use as a bowler once hard pitches came in June, but he played a career-best 228 on a featherbed pitch at the Oval and scored almost as many runs in 1897. With Rhodes and Haigh now Yorkshire's destroyers on sticky wickets, Wainwright did very little bowing in 1900 and 1901 - his last two seasons - but his batting, though extremely inconsistent, remained of use as a last resort in several cases.
