Dick Pollard
Encyclopedia
Richard "Dick" Pollard was an English cricket
er born in Westhoughton
, Lancashire
, who played in four Tests
between 1946 and 1948. A fast-medium right-arm bowler and a lower-order right-handed batsman who made useful runs on occasion, he played for Lancashire
between 1933 and 1950, taking 1,122 wickets in 298 first-class
matches; he is 10th highest wicket-taker for Lancashire.
A big and heavy man, he was known as a hard worker and, according to his obituary in Wisden
in 1986, "his reputation as a great trier commended him to the Lancashire public". Season after season, Wisden referred to Pollard's accuracy and reliability, and his ability to bowl long spells without apparently tiring.
debut for Lancashire in a rain-affected, end-of-season match in August 1933 against Nottinghamshire
; while batting at number 11
he scored 16 not out
, and took the wicket of Nottinghamshire captain Arthur Carr. In Lancashire's County Championship
-winning side of 1934, he was seen as a medium-paced reserve to the front-line bowlers, but injuries, particularly to Frank Sibbles
, meant that he played 11 matches in the last two months of the season, and took 38 wickets in them at an average
of 19.31. In the second innings of a match against Gloucestershire
, Pollard took 6 wickets for 21 runs. Wisden reported that "He kept a fine length and made the ball turn quickly with great effect". It was his best bowling at the time, beating his previous best of 2/31. In Championship games, he made only 14 runs in total, but in the end-of-season Champion County v The Rest match at The Oval
, he scored 27 not out in the first innings and 28 in the second. The Rest were made of players from counties other than the current champions.
Injuries to Sibbles and to Frank Booth
gave Pollard even greater opportunity in 1935, and he played in 23 Championship matches and was awarded his county cap
. Wisden
noted how well he compensated for the loss of the senior bowlers: "With length, fair pace and swerve, Pollard proved so successful that, no doubt, he would have taken a hundred wickets for the County had not tonsilitis caused his retirement from the Somerset match." In fact, by playing for The Rest against the new County Champions, Yorkshire
and taking three wickets in the game, he reached exactly 100 wickets for the season. Earlier in the season, in the match against Kent
at Dover
, he had improved his best innings figures to 7/87 and taken 10 wickets in a match for the first time, finishing with 11/176.
: he took 7/57 in the away match at Cardiff
and followed that with 8/42 in the return match at Old Trafford. There was also progress in batting: he hit 58 not out in the match against Surrey
at Old Trafford, and followed that with 55 in the return match at The Oval. The 1936 season was the only one in which he passed 50 runs in an innings more than once.
Pollard's record in the three immediate pre-war seasons, 1937–1939 indicate his reliability. In the three seasons, he took, respectively, 112, 149, and 111 wickets, with 1938 being the most prolific season in his career. For most of these three years, his new-ball partner was Eddie Phillipson
, who was very similar in style and pace. They both relied on accuracy rather than speed, using the seam of the ball, and generating some swing. Phillipson was injured for part of 1938, which put more work on to Pollard and to a degree explains his high tally of wickets. In that season too, Pollard was picked for a Test trial match between England and The Rest. Playing for The Rest, he produced the best bowling figures of the game with 5/57 in England's innings of 377, but it did not lead to a Test call-up. However, he was picked for the Gentlemen v Players
match at Lord's.
" arranged between England and the Australian Services
teams across the summer of 1945. Identified as "Sergeant R. Pollard" in Wisden, he was the leading wicket-taker on either side, with 25 wickets. In his first game, the second of the series after the Australians had won the first, he was upstaged in the first innings by fellow opening bowler George Pope, who took 5/58. But Wisden noted that "the most damaging blow was a beautiful ball by Pollard which took Hassett
's middle stump". And in the second innings, Pollard's 5/76 outshone Pope's 3/69. His figures were even better in the next match: 6/75 in the Australians' first innings. And he took four wickets in an innings in both the fourth and fifth matches of the series.
Although Pollard had played several matches in 1945, he was not yet discharged from the forces, and this limited his appearances in the first full season for first-class cricket in 1946. He managed only 12 County Championship matches for Lancashire, though he took 55 wickets in those games. He did, though, finally play his first Test match: the second match of the three-Test series against India
. The previous week, he had played in the annual Gentlemen v Players match and had taken nine wickets in the game for just 53 runs. During this match, he spent a period off the ground negotiating with his Army chiefs his availability for the Old Trafford Test. In the Test itself, he had a sensational start. After the Indians had reached 124 without loss on the second day of the match, Pollard caused a collapse with a spell of four wickets for seven runs in five overs. In the innings as a whole, which ended with India all out for 170, he finished with 5/24 off 27 overs, 16 of which were maidens. In the second innings he took two further wickets for 63 runs.
That performance earned Pollard selection for the 1946-47 Ashes tour
, and he and Bill Voce
were given special leave from the Army to make the tour. But, Wisden wrote, "neither had sufficient pace to be really troublesome in the clear Australian atmosphere". Pollard's 28 wickets on the tour as a whole cost more than 36 runs each, and he did not feature in the Tests in Australia, although he won his second cap
in a rain-affected single Test in New Zealand, when he took three wickets for 73 runs. Having arrived from a country that had had seven years of rationing Australia was a 'land flowing with milk and honey' and Pollard soon put on two stone (28 lbs
) in weight. He was out of the reckoning for Test places in the hot summer of 1947 but responded with one of his best county seasons. For Lancashire in Championship matches, he took 131 wickets, with the next best total being 74. In all matches, he took 144 wickets at an average just below 20 runs per wicket, the second best figures of his career. The season produced both his career-best bowling performance and his highest first-class score. The two feats came in consecutive matches, both at Old Trafford. First, in the match against Derbyshire
, he made 63, the only time he passed 60 in his career; he shared a seventh wicket partnership of 148 with Alan Wharton
. Then in the next game against Northamptonshire
, bowling unchanged in the first innings with Phillipson, he took 8/33.
The 1948 tour of England by the Australian team captained by Donald Bradman
, and subsequently labelled The Invincibles, provided convincing evidence of the weakness in international terms of English cricket at the time. Two heavy defeats in the first two Test matches led to a recall for Pollard, then 36 years old, for the third match, which was played at Old Trafford. The move was a success, for England were well on top until rain intervened and the match ended in a draw. Pollard's most significant contribution as a batsman in Tests was a "full-blooded pull" from the off spin of Ian Johnson
, which caught the Australian opening batsman Sid Barnes
, who was fielding at short leg on the edge of the pitch, under the ribs. Barnes was carried off on a stretcher, batted low in the Australian order and then had to retire hurt. He spent 10 days in hospital after the match and missed the next Test. The rearranged Australian batting order was discomfited by the accuracy of Alec Bedser
and Pollard. Pollard's three wickets included Bradman, leg before wicket
for just seven runs. The draw at Old Trafford encouraged the selectors to persevere with the same fast-medium combination in the fourth Test, at Leeds
, but in a high scoring match on a good pitch the lack of spin bowling was decisive. Pollard's contribution was to take, in the space of three balls in the first innings, the wickets of Hassett and Bradman, the latter bowled for 33. But that was the extent of his success, and Australia made 404 for three wickets to win the match, at the time the highest total to win a Test match. For the final match of the series at The Oval, on what was seen as very definitely a pitch that was more suited to spin than quick bowling, Pollard was the bowler dropped to make way for an extra spin bowler.
He did not play Test cricket again, but there was a short codicil 54 years later. In 2002, the ball used by Pollard to bowl Bradman for 33 in the fourth Test in 1948 was sold for £1,700 at auction.
The following season, though, he bowled 400 fewer overs and took only 73 wickets in all, at the relatively high cost of 28 runs per wicket. The Lancashire team regularly included several new, younger bowlers, and many of them – Roy Tattersall
, Malcolm Hilton
, Bob Berry
– were spin bowlers (though Tattersall started as a swing bowler). Pollard continued to open the bowling and was as accurate as ever, but was less successful than in other seasons. He was given a benefit
in August 1949 by Lancashire and picked the match against Derbyshire, which raised £8,035, the third highest total at the time. In 1950, after a few matches with little bowling success, Pollard was dropped, and Lancashire started using Hilton, the fastest of three slow left-arm bowlers, to open the bowling in some matches. At the end of the season, in which Lancashire shared the County Championship title with Surrey
, Pollard retired from first-class cricket to move into Lancashire League cricket.
That was not quite the end of the first-class career as in 1952, Pollard played one further match, at the age of 40, for a Commonwealth XI
against the Indian touring team
. He took three wickets in the match, made two catches and 17 runs.
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
er born in Westhoughton
Westhoughton
Westhoughton is a town and civil parish of the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton in Greater Manchester, England. It is southwest of Bolton, east of Wigan and northwest of Manchester....
, Lancashire
Lancashire
Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...
, who played in four Tests
Test cricket
Test cricket is the longest form of the sport of cricket. Test matches are played between national representative teams with "Test status", as determined by the International Cricket Council , with four innings played between two teams of 11 players over a period of up to a maximum five days...
between 1946 and 1948. A fast-medium right-arm bowler and a lower-order right-handed batsman who made useful runs on occasion, he played for Lancashire
Lancashire County Cricket Club
Lancashire County Cricket Club represents the historic county of Lancashire in cricket's County Championship. The club was founded in 1864 as a successor to Manchester Cricket Club and has played at Old Trafford since then...
between 1933 and 1950, taking 1,122 wickets in 298 first-class
First-class cricket
First-class cricket is a class of cricket that consists of matches of three or more days' scheduled duration, that are between two sides of eleven players and are officially adjudged first-class by virtue of the standard of the competing teams...
matches; he is 10th highest wicket-taker for Lancashire.
A big and heavy man, he was known as a hard worker and, according to his obituary in Wisden
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom...
in 1986, "his reputation as a great trier commended him to the Lancashire public". Season after season, Wisden referred to Pollard's accuracy and reliability, and his ability to bowl long spells without apparently tiring.
Early career
Pollard made his first-classFirst-class cricket
First-class cricket is a class of cricket that consists of matches of three or more days' scheduled duration, that are between two sides of eleven players and are officially adjudged first-class by virtue of the standard of the competing teams...
debut for Lancashire in a rain-affected, end-of-season match in August 1933 against Nottinghamshire
Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club
Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Nottinghamshire, and the current county champions. Its limited overs team is called the Nottinghamshire Outlaws...
; while batting at number 11
Batting order (cricket)
In cricket, the batting order is the sequence in which batsmen play through their team's innings, there always being two batsmen taking part at any one time...
he scored 16 not out
Not out
In cricket, a batsman will be not out if he comes out to bat in an innings and has not been dismissed by the end of the innings. One may similarly describe a batsman as not out while the innings is still in progress...
, and took the wicket of Nottinghamshire captain Arthur Carr. In Lancashire's County Championship
County Championship
The County Championship is the domestic first-class cricket competition in England and Wales...
-winning side of 1934, he was seen as a medium-paced reserve to the front-line bowlers, but injuries, particularly to Frank Sibbles
Frank Sibbles
Frank Marshall Sibbles was a spin bowler who represented Lancashire County Cricket Club in first-class cricket. He started off playing cricket for Werneth Cricket Club in the Central Lancashire Cricket League...
, meant that he played 11 matches in the last two months of the season, and took 38 wickets in them at an average
Bowling average
Bowling average is a statistic measuring the performance of bowlers in the sport of cricket.A bowler's bowling average is defined as the total number of runs conceded by the bowlers divided by the number of wickets taken by the bowler, so the lower the average the better. It is similar to earned...
of 19.31. In the second innings of a match against Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire County Cricket Club
Gloucestershire County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh national cricket structure, representing the historic county of Gloucestershire. Its limited overs team is called the Gloucestershire Gladiators....
, Pollard took 6 wickets for 21 runs. Wisden reported that "He kept a fine length and made the ball turn quickly with great effect". It was his best bowling at the time, beating his previous best of 2/31. In Championship games, he made only 14 runs in total, but in the end-of-season Champion County v The Rest match at The Oval
The Oval
The Kia Oval, still commonly referred to by its original name of The Oval, is an international cricket ground in Kennington, in the London Borough of Lambeth. In the past it was also sometimes called the Kennington Oval...
, he scored 27 not out in the first innings and 28 in the second. The Rest were made of players from counties other than the current champions.
Injuries to Sibbles and to Frank Booth
Frank Booth (cricketer)
Frank Stanley Booth was an English cricketer who played first-class cricket for Lancashire between 1927 and 1937. Predominantly a fast bowler he took 457 wickets for the club including 101 during the 1934 English season in which the county won the County Championship.-External links:**...
gave Pollard even greater opportunity in 1935, and he played in 23 Championship matches and was awarded his county cap
Cap (sport)
In sports, a cap is a metaphorical term for a player's appearance on a select team, such as a national team. The term dates from the practice in the United Kingdom of awarding a cap to every player in an international match of association football...
. Wisden
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom...
noted how well he compensated for the loss of the senior bowlers: "With length, fair pace and swerve, Pollard proved so successful that, no doubt, he would have taken a hundred wickets for the County had not tonsilitis caused his retirement from the Somerset match." In fact, by playing for The Rest against the new County Champions, Yorkshire
Yorkshire County Cricket Club
Yorkshire County Cricket Club represents the historic county of Yorkshire as one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure....
and taking three wickets in the game, he reached exactly 100 wickets for the season. Earlier in the season, in the match against Kent
Kent County Cricket Club
Kent County Cricket Club is one of the 18 first class county county cricket clubs which make up the English and Welsh national cricket structure, representing the county of Kent...
at Dover
Dover
Dover is a town and major ferry port in the home county of Kent, in South East England. It faces France across the narrowest part of the English Channel, and lies south-east of Canterbury; east of Kent's administrative capital Maidstone; and north-east along the coastline from Dungeness and Hastings...
, he had improved his best innings figures to 7/87 and taken 10 wickets in a match for the first time, finishing with 11/176.
Front-line county bowler
Age and injuries caused a the decline of many of Lancashire's cricketers in 1936, and the county finished 11th in the County Championship, equalling its lowest ever position to that date. Pollard was exempted from the criticisms in Wisden – he "improved a little", it said. In all games, he took 108 wickets at an average of 20.13. He improved his best bowling figures twice in different matches against GlamorganGlamorgan County Cricket Club
Glamorgan County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh national cricket structure, representing the historic county of Glamorgan aka Glamorganshire . Glamorgan CCC is the only Welsh first-class cricket club. Glamorgan CCC have won the English County...
: he took 7/57 in the away match at Cardiff
Cardiff Arms Park
Cardiff Arms Park , also known as The Arms Park, is primarily known as a rugby union stadium, but it also has a bowling green, and is situated in the centre of Cardiff, Wales. The Arms Park was host to the British Empire and Commonwealth Games in 1958, and hosted four games in the 1991 Rugby World...
and followed that with 8/42 in the return match at Old Trafford. There was also progress in batting: he hit 58 not out in the match against Surrey
Surrey County Cricket Club
Surrey County Cricket Club is one of the 18 professional county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Surrey. Its limited overs team is called the Surrey Lions...
at Old Trafford, and followed that with 55 in the return match at The Oval. The 1936 season was the only one in which he passed 50 runs in an innings more than once.
Pollard's record in the three immediate pre-war seasons, 1937–1939 indicate his reliability. In the three seasons, he took, respectively, 112, 149, and 111 wickets, with 1938 being the most prolific season in his career. For most of these three years, his new-ball partner was Eddie Phillipson
Eddie Phillipson
William Edward Phillipson was an English first class cricketer who was born in Cheshire. He played for Lancashire for 15 years before becoming a Test cricket umpire.-External links:*...
, who was very similar in style and pace. They both relied on accuracy rather than speed, using the seam of the ball, and generating some swing. Phillipson was injured for part of 1938, which put more work on to Pollard and to a degree explains his high tally of wickets. In that season too, Pollard was picked for a Test trial match between England and The Rest. Playing for The Rest, he produced the best bowling figures of the game with 5/57 in England's innings of 377, but it did not lead to a Test call-up. However, he was picked for the Gentlemen v Players
Gentlemen v Players
The Gentlemen v Players game was a first-class cricket match that was generally played on an annual basis between one team consisting of amateurs and one of professionals . The first two games took place in 1806 but the fixture was not revived until 1819. It was more or less annual thereafter...
match at Lord's.
Post-war Test player
Like many of his generation, Pollard lost significant cricket years to the Second World War. Unlike some, though, he had a relatively swift return to first-class cricket when the war ended, and he was picked for four of the five "Victory TestsVictory Tests
The Victory Tests were a series of cricket matches played in England from 19 May to 22 August 1945, between a combined Australian Services XI and an English national side...
" arranged between England and the Australian Services
Australian Services cricket team
The Australian Services XI was a cricket team comprising solely military service personnel during World War II. They became active in May 1945 after the defeat of Nazi Germany. The team played matches against English cricket sides of both military and civilian origins to celebrate the end of the war...
teams across the summer of 1945. Identified as "Sergeant R. Pollard" in Wisden, he was the leading wicket-taker on either side, with 25 wickets. In his first game, the second of the series after the Australians had won the first, he was upstaged in the first innings by fellow opening bowler George Pope, who took 5/58. But Wisden noted that "the most damaging blow was a beautiful ball by Pollard which took Hassett
Lindsay Hassett
Arthur Lindsay Hassett MBE was a cricketer who played for Victoria and Australia. The diminutive Hassett was an elegant middle-order batsman, described by Wisden as, "... a master of nearly every stroke ... his superb timing, nimble footwork and strong wrists enabled him to make batting look a...
's middle stump". And in the second innings, Pollard's 5/76 outshone Pope's 3/69. His figures were even better in the next match: 6/75 in the Australians' first innings. And he took four wickets in an innings in both the fourth and fifth matches of the series.
Although Pollard had played several matches in 1945, he was not yet discharged from the forces, and this limited his appearances in the first full season for first-class cricket in 1946. He managed only 12 County Championship matches for Lancashire, though he took 55 wickets in those games. He did, though, finally play his first Test match: the second match of the three-Test series against India
Indian cricket team in England in 1946
The Indian cricket team toured England in the 1946 season and played 29 first-class fixtures with 11 wins, 4 defeats and 14 draws. The 1946 season marked a return to normal first-class cricket in England following the end of World War II...
. The previous week, he had played in the annual Gentlemen v Players match and had taken nine wickets in the game for just 53 runs. During this match, he spent a period off the ground negotiating with his Army chiefs his availability for the Old Trafford Test. In the Test itself, he had a sensational start. After the Indians had reached 124 without loss on the second day of the match, Pollard caused a collapse with a spell of four wickets for seven runs in five overs. In the innings as a whole, which ended with India all out for 170, he finished with 5/24 off 27 overs, 16 of which were maidens. In the second innings he took two further wickets for 63 runs.
That performance earned Pollard selection for the 1946-47 Ashes tour
English cricket team in Australia in 1946-47
The English cricket team in Australia in 1946–47 was captained by Wally Hammond, with Norman Yardley as his vice-captain and Bill Edrich as the senior professional. It played as England in the 1946-47 Ashes series against the Australians and as the MCC in their other matches on the tour...
, and he and Bill Voce
Bill Voce
Bill Voce was an English cricketer. He played for the Nottinghamshire and England, and was an instrumental part of England's infamous Bodyline tour of Australia in 1932–1933.-Life and career:...
were given special leave from the Army to make the tour. But, Wisden wrote, "neither had sufficient pace to be really troublesome in the clear Australian atmosphere". Pollard's 28 wickets on the tour as a whole cost more than 36 runs each, and he did not feature in the Tests in Australia, although he won his second cap
Cap (sport)
In sports, a cap is a metaphorical term for a player's appearance on a select team, such as a national team. The term dates from the practice in the United Kingdom of awarding a cap to every player in an international match of association football...
in a rain-affected single Test in New Zealand, when he took three wickets for 73 runs. Having arrived from a country that had had seven years of rationing Australia was a 'land flowing with milk and honey' and Pollard soon put on two stone (28 lbs
Pound (mass)
The pound or pound-mass is a unit of mass used in the Imperial, United States customary and other systems of measurement...
) in weight. He was out of the reckoning for Test places in the hot summer of 1947 but responded with one of his best county seasons. For Lancashire in Championship matches, he took 131 wickets, with the next best total being 74. In all matches, he took 144 wickets at an average just below 20 runs per wicket, the second best figures of his career. The season produced both his career-best bowling performance and his highest first-class score. The two feats came in consecutive matches, both at Old Trafford. First, in the match against Derbyshire
Derbyshire County Cricket Club
Derbyshire County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the England and Wales domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Derbyshire...
, he made 63, the only time he passed 60 in his career; he shared a seventh wicket partnership of 148 with Alan Wharton
Alan Wharton
Alan Wharton was an English cricketer, who played for Lancashire, Leicestershire and England.-Life and career:Wharton was born in Heywood, Lancashire, England....
. Then in the next game against Northamptonshire
Northamptonshire County Cricket Club
Northamptonshire County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Northamptonshire. Its limited overs team is called the Northants Steelbacks. The traditional club colour is Maroon. During the...
, bowling unchanged in the first innings with Phillipson, he took 8/33.
The 1948 tour of England by the Australian team captained by Donald Bradman
Donald Bradman
Sir Donald George Bradman, AC , often referred to as "The Don", was an Australian cricketer, widely acknowledged as the greatest batsman of all time...
, and subsequently labelled The Invincibles, provided convincing evidence of the weakness in international terms of English cricket at the time. Two heavy defeats in the first two Test matches led to a recall for Pollard, then 36 years old, for the third match, which was played at Old Trafford. The move was a success, for England were well on top until rain intervened and the match ended in a draw. Pollard's most significant contribution as a batsman in Tests was a "full-blooded pull" from the off spin of Ian Johnson
Ian Johnson (cricketer)
Ian William Geddes Johnson CBE was an Australian cricketer who played 45 Test matches as a slow off-break bowler between 1946 and 1956. Johnson captured 109 Test wickets at an average of 29.19 runs per wicket and as a lower order batsman made 1,000 runs at an average of...
, which caught the Australian opening batsman Sid Barnes
Sid Barnes
Sidney George Barnes was an Australian cricketer and cricket writer, who played 13 Test matches between 1938 and 1948. Able to open the innings or bat down the order, Barnes was regarded as one of Australia's finest batsmen in the period immediately following the Second World War...
, who was fielding at short leg on the edge of the pitch, under the ribs. Barnes was carried off on a stretcher, batted low in the Australian order and then had to retire hurt. He spent 10 days in hospital after the match and missed the next Test. The rearranged Australian batting order was discomfited by the accuracy of Alec Bedser
Alec Bedser
Sir Alec Victor Bedser, CBE was a professional English cricketer. He was the chairman of selectors for the English national cricket team, and the president of Surrey County Cricket Club...
and Pollard. Pollard's three wickets included Bradman, leg before wicket
Leg before wicket
In the sport of cricket, leg before wicket is one of the ways in which a batsman can be dismissed. An umpire will rule a batsman out LBW under a series of circumstances which primarily include the ball striking the batsman's body when it would otherwise have continued on to hit the batsman's...
for just seven runs. The draw at Old Trafford encouraged the selectors to persevere with the same fast-medium combination in the fourth Test, at Leeds
Headingley Stadium
Headingley Stadium is a sporting complex in the Leeds suburb of Headingley in West Yorkshire, England. It is the home of Yorkshire County Cricket Club, rugby league team Leeds Rhinos and rugby union team Leeds Carnegie ....
, but in a high scoring match on a good pitch the lack of spin bowling was decisive. Pollard's contribution was to take, in the space of three balls in the first innings, the wickets of Hassett and Bradman, the latter bowled for 33. But that was the extent of his success, and Australia made 404 for three wickets to win the match, at the time the highest total to win a Test match. For the final match of the series at The Oval, on what was seen as very definitely a pitch that was more suited to spin than quick bowling, Pollard was the bowler dropped to make way for an extra spin bowler.
He did not play Test cricket again, but there was a short codicil 54 years later. In 2002, the ball used by Pollard to bowl Bradman for 33 in the fourth Test in 1948 was sold for £1,700 at auction.
Final cricket years
Lancashire's reliance on Pollard lessened during the 1948 season, when his County Championship total of 95 wickets was only eight ahead of the slow left-arm bowler William Roberts. In all matches, he took 116 wickets at an average of 23, and he bowled more overs, close to 1,300, than in any other first-class season.The following season, though, he bowled 400 fewer overs and took only 73 wickets in all, at the relatively high cost of 28 runs per wicket. The Lancashire team regularly included several new, younger bowlers, and many of them – Roy Tattersall
Roy Tattersall
Roy Tattersall is an English former Lancashire cricketer, who played sixteen Tests for England as a specialist off spin bowler....
, Malcolm Hilton
Malcolm Hilton
Malcolm Jameson Hilton was an English left-arm spin bowler, who played for Lancashire and in four Test matches for England....
, Bob Berry
Bob Berry (cricketer)
Robert Berry was an English cricketer. He played in two Tests in 1950. He played county cricket for Lancashire from 1948 to 1954, for Worcestershire from 1955 to 1958, and for Derbyshire from 1959 to 1962...
– were spin bowlers (though Tattersall started as a swing bowler). Pollard continued to open the bowling and was as accurate as ever, but was less successful than in other seasons. He was given a benefit
Benefit (sports)
A benefit or testimonial is a match or season of activities granted by a sporting body to a loyal sportsman to boost their income before retirement. Often this is in the form of a match for which all the ticket proceeds are given to the player in question.There have been occasions when a...
in August 1949 by Lancashire and picked the match against Derbyshire, which raised £8,035, the third highest total at the time. In 1950, after a few matches with little bowling success, Pollard was dropped, and Lancashire started using Hilton, the fastest of three slow left-arm bowlers, to open the bowling in some matches. At the end of the season, in which Lancashire shared the County Championship title with Surrey
Surrey County Cricket Club
Surrey County Cricket Club is one of the 18 professional county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Surrey. Its limited overs team is called the Surrey Lions...
, Pollard retired from first-class cricket to move into Lancashire League cricket.
That was not quite the end of the first-class career as in 1952, Pollard played one further match, at the age of 40, for a Commonwealth XI
Commonwealth XI cricket team
The Commonwealth XI cricket team played over 100 first-class cricket matches from 1949 to 1968. The team started out as a side made up of mostly English, Australian and West Indian cricketers, that toured the subcontinent but later on played first-class fixtures in England...
against the Indian touring team
Indian cricket team in England in 1952
The Indian cricket team toured England in the 1952 season. The team played four Test matches, losing three of them and drawing the other one. In all first-class matches, they played 29, winning four and losing five, with the rest drawn.-The Indian team:...
. He took three wickets in the match, made two catches and 17 runs.