Alec Hurwood
11 wickets @ 15.45 (best 4/22) in 2 Test matches (band 9)
113 wickets @ 27.62 (5 5WI, best 6/80) in 43 first-class matches
It might be a
slight exaggeration, but there was a short while around the turn of the 1930s when Alec Hurwood might have been the fourth-best spinner in the world. Unfortunately for him, the top three at the time were the famous trio of Grimmett, Ironmonger and O'Reilly. Hurwood's mixture of off-spinners and arm balls delivered off a very short run-up were good enough to regularly trouble Don Bradman during Shield matches.
At a time when to play Shield cricket meant bowling at Jackson, Bradman, Fairfax, Kippax and McCabe for New South Wales, then Ponsford, Woodfull, Ryder and Darling for Victoria, then Richardson, Nitschke and the rest at South Australia, the "step up" to Test cricket wasn't a step up at all: indeed, Hurwood had no trouble running through the touring West Indian batters. In fact, only one person didn't rate Hurwood: Bill Woodfull, captain of Victoria and Australia, who bowled Hurwood for only 354 overs across 20 first-class matches in the 1930 Ashes Tour, and picked him for none of the Test matches.
And as a result, as we near 100 years since Hurwood's Test career, he is most famous as a footnote in his famous teammates' career.
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Mike Procter (band 6)
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Alec Hurwood (band 9)
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Charlie Parker (band 10)
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@Umair7