Bill Edrich was a cricketer who would have been the answer to prayer in the troubled England sides of today and especially in the West Indies in 1985/86. Endlessly cheerful, always optimistic and physically courageous, he was a splendid hitter of short-pitched fast bowling and took the blows he received as a part of the game. When he made 16 in an hour and three-quarters on a hideous wicket at Brisbane in the first innings of the first Test in 1946/47, an innings which Wisden’s correspondent described as “one of the most skillful batting displays I have ever seen”, it was reckoned that he was hit ten times by Lindwall, Miller and Toshack.
Bill Edrich always reserved his best for the most challenging of situations and was a force to reckon with in red-ball cricket. His Wisden Almanack obituary profiled an illustrious career.
So far from being demoralised by this experience, he scored in the series 462 runs with an average of 46.20, and that for a side which lost three Tests, two of them by an innings, and drew the other two. Moreover, his cricket did not end with his batting. Though he stood only 5ft 6in tall, and had a low, slinging action, he could off a run of 11 strides bowl genuinely fast for a few overs.
Admittedly it was a terrible proof of the weakness of English bowling after the war that at this period he often had to open in Test matches. It is barely credible that in 1950, when his 22 wickets in the season cost him just under 50 runs each, he opened in both of West Indies’ innings at Lord’s. In fairness it must be added that Walcott, who made 168 not out in the second innings, was missed off him in the slips at nine.
In first-class cricket he had scored 36,965 runs, with an average of 42.39 and made 86 centuries, nine of them double-centuries: he took 479 wickets at 33.31 and held 526 catches. His highest score was 267 not out for Middlesex against Northamptonshire at Northampton in 1947. For Middlesex his figures were 25,738 runs with an average of 43.40 and 328 wickets at 30.41, and in Tests he made 2,440 runs with an average of 40, including six hundreds: he also took 41 wickets at 41.29 and held 39 catches.
Edrich, William John (Bill), DFC, died on April 23, 1986, aged 70
