Arthur Booth

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Arthur Booth, born at Featherstone, Yorkshire, on November 3, 1902 and died at Rochdale, Lancashire on August 17, 1974, was a cricketer who had a short but sensational career in first-class cricket for Yorkshire.

A slow left-arm bowler and a lower-order right-handed batsman, Booth had a couple of first-class matches on trial in 1931 for Yorkshire, and played for the Yorkshire second eleven in the Minor Counties Championship, playing for the Minor Counties representative sides twice in the later 1930s. But he was unable to break into the first team because of the presence of Hedley Verity.

None of his prewar career, though, was preparation for his fleeting but successful career in county cricket after the Second World War, in which Verity had been killed. Playing initially in two first class matches in 1945, Booth became a regular at the age of 43 in the Yorkshire side that won the County Championship in 1946, the first full post-war season. In all matches, Booth took 111 wickets at an average of 11.61. He received his county cap and was top of the national bowling averages for the season.

In 1947, Booth played only four times for Yorkshire, took just seven wickets and retired. In his whole career, almost 85 per cent of his 131 career wickets came in the one remarkable season of 1946.