Wally Hammond, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

    

Wally Hammond

English cricket player

Date of Birth: 19-Jun-1903

Place of Birth: Dover, England, United Kingdom

Date of Death: 01-Jul-1965

Profession: association football player, cricketer

Nationality: United Kingdom

Zodiac Sign: Gemini


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About Wally Hammond

  • Walter Reginald "Wally" Hammond (19 June 1903 – 1 July 1965) was an English first-class cricketer who played for Gloucestershire in a career that lasted from 1920 to 1951.
  • Beginning as a professional, he later became an amateur and was appointed captain of England.
  • Primarily a middle-order batsman, Wisden Cricketers' Almanack described him in his obituary as one of the four best batsmen in the history of cricket.
  • He was considered to be the best English batsman of the 1930s by commentators and those with whom he played; they also said that he was one of the best slip fielders ever.
  • Hammond was an effective fast-medium pace bowler and contemporaries believed that if he had been less reluctant to bowl, he could have achieved even more with the ball than he did. In a Test career spanning 85 matches, he scored 7,249 runs and took 83 wickets.
  • Hammond captained England in 20 of those Tests, winning four, losing three, and drawing 13.
  • His career aggregate of runs was the highest in Test cricket until surpassed by Colin Cowdrey in 1970; his total of 22 Test centuries remained an English record until Alastair Cook surpassed it in December 2012.
  • In 1933, he set a record for the highest individual Test innings of 336 not out, surpassed by Len Hutton in 1938.
  • In all first-class cricket, he scored 50,551 runs and 167 centuries, respectively the seventh and third highest totals by a first-class cricketer.
  • With the ball, he took 732 wickets. Although Hammond began his career in 1920, he was required to wait until 1923 before he could play full-time, after his qualification to play for Gloucestershire was challenged.
  • His potential was spotted immediately and after three full seasons, he was chosen to visit the West Indies in 1925–26 as a member of a Marylebone Cricket Club (M.C.C.) touring party, but contracted a serious illness on the tour.
  • He began to score heavily after his recovery in 1927 and was selected for England.
  • In the 1928–29 series against Australia he scored 905 runs, then a record aggregate for a Test series.
  • He dominated county cricket in the 1930s and, despite a mid-decade slump in Test form, was made captain of England in 1938.
  • He continued as captain after the Second World War, but his health had deteriorated and he retired from first-class cricket after an unsuccessful tour of Australia in 1946–47.
  • He appeared in two more first-class matches in the early 1950s. Hammond was married twice, divorcing his first wife in acrimonious circumstances, and had a reputation for infidelity.
  • His relationships with other players were difficult; teammates and opponents alike found him hard to get along with.
  • He was unsuccessful in business dealings and failed to establish a successful career once he retired from cricket.
  • He moved to South Africa in the 1950s in an attempt to start a business, but this came to nothing.
  • As a result, he and his family struggled financially.
  • Shortly after beginning a career as a sports administrator, he was involved in a serious car crash in 1960 which left him frail.
  • He died of a heart attack in 1965.

Read more at Wikipedia

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