By 1839 William Lillywhite was 47 years old — an age at which most cricketers of any era have long since retired — and was still indisputably the leading bowler in England. The 1839 season saw him take wickets in every major fixture: Players vs Gentlemen at Lord's, North vs South, and the Sussex county matches. His longevity at the top of the bowling lists is one of the remarkable features of the late 1830s.
Bowlers of the 1820s and 1830s typically peaked young and burned out fast — the new roundarm action put strain on shoulders and backs that the underarm style had not. Lillywhite's longevity, in part because his action was a smooth low-roundarm rather than a high one, was unusual.
Lillywhite, born in 1792, had come to first-class cricket late but had been at the top of the bowling lists since the late 1820s. Through the 1830s, in his late thirties and forties, he showed no signs of decline. The 1839 season — when he was 47 — saw him bowling at Lord's and the Oval as effectively as ever. His method, by then refined over fifteen years, was to bowl a relentless length just outside off-stump with the slight movement off the seam that the rough pitches of the era allowed. Batsmen who had played him for years still found him hard to score off, and his partnership with Jem Broadbridge in the Sussex side and with Lillywhite's own son John (who played for Sussex from 1850 onwards) gave the county its bowling backbone. Lillywhite would continue at the top for another decade. He took his thousandth first-class wicket in 1853 — the first bowler to reach the milestone — at the age of 61.
1828: Roundarm legalised; Lillywhite already at 36
Mid-1830s: Established as England's leading bowler
1839: Aged 47, still leading the Sussex and Players bowling
1853: Takes his 1,000th first-class wicket aged 61
1854: Lillywhite dies
1792
Lillywhite born
1828
Roundarm legalised — Lillywhite 36
1839
Still leading bowler at 47
1853
First bowler to 1,000 first-class wickets, aged 61
1854
Lillywhite dies
Lillywhite continued to play through the 1840s and into the early 1850s. He died in 1854, the first bowler to have taken 1,000 first-class wickets and the patriarch of the Lillywhite cricketing dynasty.
Cricket's first ageless bowler, still the leading professional in England in his late forties and a model for every later veteran.
Lillywhite's longevity is one of the remarkable feats of nineteenth-century cricket. Fred Spofforth in the 1880s, Wilfred Rhodes in the 1900s and 1910s, Jack Hobbs into his fifties — all of these later bowlers worked within a tradition of cricketing longevity that Lillywhite founded.
Yorkshire v Essex
1932-06-16
On 15-16 June 1932 Herbert Sutcliffe (313) and Percy Holmes (224*) put on 555 for the first wicket against Essex at Leyton, breaking the world first-class record for any wicket and adding a layer of folklore — including a scoreboard that read 554 for several minutes and a hastily reversed declaration — that has clung to the partnership ever since.
Australia v England
1933-02-14
With the fate of the Bodyline series in the balance and England 216 for 6 chasing 340, Eddie Paynter checked himself out of a Brisbane hospital where he was being treated for acute tonsillitis, taxied to the Gabba in pyjamas and a dressing gown, and batted for nearly four hours to score 83. England drew level on first innings, won the Test by six wickets and the series 4-1.
Australia
1934-09-25
Days after the 1934 Oval Test, Bradman fell seriously ill with appendicitis that progressed to peritonitis. With antibiotics not yet available, he was given little chance of survival; his wife Jessie left Adelaide on a sea voyage to England prepared for the worst. He recovered after weeks of intensive nursing in a London nursing home and returned to first-class cricket the following Australian summer.