Richard
Cricket Web Staff Member
I confess I've not even heard of some of those names, and another (Fender) I've heard of only due to a rather famous innings with the bat of extraordinary speed and not due to his bowling. Those whose virtues as spinners I know something of extends only to Freeman, Robins and Peebles, and none exactly had what I'd call truly oustanding Test careers, hence my comment that England had never really had a wristspinner of any massive note.Although I tend to agree with you to a certain extent Richard I think you’re overstating your case rather – pre WW2 we had a long history of producing Test standard leg spinners in England – Tich Freeman, Dick Tyldesley, Walter Robins, Ian Peebles, Percy Fender, Len Wilkinson, Tom Mitchell, Jim Sims and Freddie Brown all had their moments between the wars and none, save possibly Mitchell, could be described as failures – even after the war Doug Wright and Roly Jenkins kept the breed alive and Peter Smith won selection too albeit he was not a success.
And Freeman (I'd heard about him, though not Tydlsley) as you note lower down this thread was probably a bowler more akin to Anil Kumble than Shane Warne or even to Clarrie Grimmett or Arthur Mailey. I've noted many times that I dread to think how deadly Kumble might've been on uncovered wickets in a less-than-outstanding summer, never mind a damp one, and maybe in Freeman we have something of a suggestion at the answer. But Freeman was not the type of bowler you could expect to travel well, rather as Kumble for so much of his career wasn't.