Tom Hayward, the Surrey opener who had partnered Jack Hobbs for nearly a decade and been one of the leading English professionals of the Edwardian age, played his final first-class season in 1914. The interruption of the war meant he never had a proper farewell match.
Hayward had played 35 Tests, scored over 43,000 first-class runs, and been the leading English professional of the 1900s before Hobbs.
By 1914 he was 43 and reduced in form. He intended to play one more season but the war intervened.
Hayward made his Surrey debut in 1893, took over as opening batsman before the turn of the century, and was the senior partner when Jack Hobbs joined the side in 1905. Together they opened for Surrey for nine seasons. By 1914 Hayward was 43 and clearly winding down; he scored only 1,061 first-class runs that summer, well below his old standard. With the season cut short by Grace's letter in late August, his career simply stopped. He never played first-class cricket again. He had scored 43,551 first-class runs and 104 first-class centuries, putting him among the most prolific batsmen of the pre-Bradman era. He continued as a coach, where his most famous pupil was Jack Hobbs, who described Hayward as 'the master who taught me everything I knew about opening the batting'.
1893: Surrey debut
1905: Joined by Hobbs at the top of the order
1906: 3,518 first-class runs in a season
1914: Final first-class season cut short by war
1893
Surrey debut
1905
Hobbs joins Surrey opening pair
1906
3,518 runs in a season
1914
Final season cut short by war
“I owe everything to Tom Hayward.”
Hayward retired quietly into coaching. He died in 1939 in Cambridge.
An Edwardian giant whose retirement was masked by the war — no farewell match, no benefit hundred, just an empty fixture list.
Hayward was the senior partner in the Hobbs-Hayward Surrey opening pair — one of the great pre-war county combinations. His coaching of Hobbs is part of his lasting bequest to cricket.
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.