George Lohmann
Encyclopedia
George Alfred Lohmann is regarded as one of the greatest bowlers of all time. Statistically, he holds the lowest lifetime Test bowling average
among bowlers with more than fifteen wickets and he has the second highest peak rating for a bowler in the ICC ratings.
He bowled at around medium pace, and on the primitive pitches of his time could gain a lot of spin, so that when rain affected the pitch he was invariably quite unplayable. However, against the best batsmen Lohmann possessed a great deal of skill and guile, and he could vary his pace, flight and break so deceptively as to worry batsmen on better pitches. He was the finest slip fielder of his time, and in county cricket a good enough hard-hitting batsman to score two centuries for Surrey and average 25 in 1887.
for Surrey
in ten matches during 1884. He did little bowling but nonetheless established himself as a regular member of the side for his promising batting.
The following year was nothing short of a sensation. Lohmann not only became Surrey's leading bowler, but was the leading first-class wicket-taker with 142 wickets. He also showed his promise as a batsman was no fluke, for he scored 571 runs. In 1886, Lohmann did equally well and played his first Test matches
for England against Australia. He took only one wicket at Old Trafford
, and none at Lord's, but his continued superb form in other first-class matches saw him retained for the last match at The Oval
. Here, Lohmann established himself as a great bowler with a superb twelve for 104 (7 for 36 and 5 for 68), giving England what is still one of its most decisive wins in an Ashes series. Again being the leading first-class wicket-taker, Lohmann was chosen to tour Australia with Alfred Shaw's
team.
, Lohmann became the first bowler to take eight wickets in a Test innings, and in the abnormally dry summer of 1887 showed himself far ahead of any other bowler - taking 154 wickets when the next best was 114. He also made his highest score as a batsman, scoring 115 against Sussex at Hove, whilst his aggregate of runs for the season totalled 843. Lohmann again toured Australia in the winter of 1887/1888, and with Johnny Briggs
formed an irresistible combination in the only Test match on a sticky wicket.
In 1888, a summer as wet as 1887 had been dry, Lohmann took full advantage of the dreadful pitches on which most matches were played, taking 209 wickets for only 10.90 each (including 143 in 14 county matches). In the three Tests against Australia, Briggs, Bobby Peel
and Billy Barnes
did so well that Lohmann had to do little bowling at the Oval and Old Trafford. However, he took eight wickets at Lord's and made his only Test fifty at the Oval. In 1889, Lohmann again took over 200 wickets (115 for 1485 runs in purely county matches) and took nine wickets in an innings for the first time against Sussex.
was officially constituted for the first time after years of unofficial "champion" counties (Surrey had been acknowledged as the champion county since 1887). Lohmann continued to carry all before him in 1890, taking a career-best 220 wickets and being the leading wicket-taker outside of touring teams for the sixth successive year (a feat bettered only by Tich Freeman
between 1928 and 1935). For Surrey in county cricket he totalled 113 wickets, and he again helped England to victory over Australia in the only Tests where cricket took place. In 1891, Lohmann was the leading English wicket-taker for the seventh successive year with 177 wickets as Surrey carried all before them in a wet summer, and on the following year's Australian tour, he again bowled wonderfully well, taking eight for 58 on a dry wicket in Sydney.
In 1892, with Surrey still crushing all opposition in the County Championship race, Lohmann "suffered only by comparison with previous years" (Wisden
). He surprisingly ceded the position of Surrey's chief bowler to the emergent William Lockwood
who took full advantage of Oval pitches being extremely fiery and untrue due to reconditioning of the square, but it still seemed as though Lohmann had many years of county and Test cricket ahead of him. A rude shock to Surrey was to come, however.
. In an effort to improve his health, Lohmann sailed during the 1892/1893 winter to Cape Town
. Although at first it was hoped that he might return even when the 1893 season began, for two years Lohmann's health did not at first improve and he could not play at all for Surrey in 1893 or 1894. In fact, Lohmann was not well enough to play any cricket until the 1894/1895 Currie Cup final where he turned out for Western Province.
By July 1895 his health had recovered sufficiently for him to return to England and play for Surrey again. Fortuitously, Lohmann's return coincided with a return to extremely treacherous wickets after a long spell of dry weather and much better pitches than Lohmann had ever bowled on before. Though completely overshadowed by Tom Richardson
, the mere fact of missing the good wickets in May and June caused Lohmann to actually beat Richardson in the averages, though his batting (seen as an important part of his county cricket up to 1892) was completely insignificant.
(the fourth Test cricket hat-trick
) at the end of the second innings to win the match; and after not being put on initially in the second Test, he became the first bowler to take nine wickets in a Test innings (a feat subsequently emulated only 14 times and surpassed only twice).
In 1896, Lohmann began to play for Surrey at the end of May, and, though he took 93 wickets and helped Richardson to put Australia out for 53 on a good wicket at Lord's, it was thought he had not come up to expectations. Indeed, on several occasions when pitches were suited to him (against Middlesex
at The Oval, Somerset
at Taunton and Lancashire
at Manchester), his bowling should have met with much greater success. Still, he had a fully satisfactory benefit in the game against Yorkshire in August.
A pay dispute, in which he demanded twice the existing 10-pound match fee given at the time to professional cricketers caused Lohmann, along with Billy Gunn
to withdraw from the last Test match. He continued to play for Surrey that August, but at the end of the season his health again degenerated and he had to return to South Africa and a continuation of the 1896 pay dispute caused Lohmann to retire from his English career for good.
permanently in 1897 and played a full season of first-class cricket for Western Province. In five matches on matting pitches during March 1897 he took 34 wickets for 12.26 runs each, but it was clear throughout that year that his health was unlikely to recover, and he was able to play only one further first-class match for "A Bailey's Transvaal XI".
However, Lohmann did come back to England in 1901 to manage the second South African touring team (and the first whose matches were recognised as first-class). However, his health was clearly never going to recover completely, and even after returning to Cape Town with the onset of autumn in England, Lohmann's condition only became more critical. On 1 December 1901, the tuberculosis he had fought against for nine years finally claimed his life at age 36.
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...
among bowlers with more than fifteen wickets and he has the second highest peak rating for a bowler in the ICC ratings.
He bowled at around medium pace, and on the primitive pitches of his time could gain a lot of spin, so that when rain affected the pitch he was invariably quite unplayable. However, against the best batsmen Lohmann possessed a great deal of skill and guile, and he could vary his pace, flight and break so deceptively as to worry batsmen on better pitches. He was the finest slip fielder of his time, and in county cricket a good enough hard-hitting batsman to score two centuries for Surrey and average 25 in 1887.
Early years
Lohmann first played first-class cricketFirst-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...
for 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...
in ten matches during 1884. He did little bowling but nonetheless established himself as a regular member of the side for his promising batting.
The following year was nothing short of a sensation. Lohmann not only became Surrey's leading bowler, but was the leading first-class wicket-taker with 142 wickets. He also showed his promise as a batsman was no fluke, for he scored 571 runs. In 1886, Lohmann did equally well and played his first Test matches
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...
for England against Australia. He took only one wicket at Old Trafford
Old Trafford (cricket)
Old Trafford is a cricket ground situated on Talbot Road in Old Trafford, Greater Manchester. It has been the home of Lancashire County Cricket Club since its foundation in 1864, having been the ground of Manchester Cricket Club from 1857...
, and none at Lord's, but his continued superb form in other first-class matches saw him retained for the last 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...
. Here, Lohmann established himself as a great bowler with a superb twelve for 104 (7 for 36 and 5 for 68), giving England what is still one of its most decisive wins in an Ashes series. Again being the leading first-class wicket-taker, Lohmann was chosen to tour Australia with Alfred Shaw's
Alfred Shaw
Alfred Shaw was an eminent Victorian cricketer and rugby footballer, who bowled the first ball in Test cricket and was the first to take five wickets in a Test innings . He who organised the first British Isles rugby tour to Australasia in 1888...
team.
World's premier bowler
On his first tour, Lohmann moved even further ahead of the pack as a bowler. In the Second Test at the SCGSydney Cricket Ground
The Sydney Cricket Ground is a sports stadium in Sydney in Australia. It is used for Australian football, Test cricket, One Day International cricket, some rugby league and rugby union matches and is the home ground for the New South Wales Blues cricket team and the Sydney Swans of the Australian...
, Lohmann became the first bowler to take eight wickets in a Test innings, and in the abnormally dry summer of 1887 showed himself far ahead of any other bowler - taking 154 wickets when the next best was 114. He also made his highest score as a batsman, scoring 115 against Sussex at Hove, whilst his aggregate of runs for the season totalled 843. Lohmann again toured Australia in the winter of 1887/1888, and with Johnny Briggs
Johnny Briggs (cricketer)
Johnny Briggs was a left arm spin bowler for Lancashire County Cricket Club between 1879 and 1900 who still stands as the second-highest wicket-taker in the county's history after Brian Statham...
formed an irresistible combination in the only Test match on a sticky wicket.
In 1888, a summer as wet as 1887 had been dry, Lohmann took full advantage of the dreadful pitches on which most matches were played, taking 209 wickets for only 10.90 each (including 143 in 14 county matches). In the three Tests against Australia, Briggs, Bobby Peel
Bobby Peel
Robert "Bobby" Peel was a Yorkshire and England cricketer: a left-arm spinner who ranks as one of the finest bowlers of the 1890s. He was also a capable batsman, who once hit 210 not out...
and Billy Barnes
Billy Barnes
William Barnes was a professional cricketer who played for Nottinghamshire between 1875 and 1894 and England between 1880 and 1890. In 1890 he was named as one of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year. Barnes also toured Australia three times and North America once...
did so well that Lohmann had to do little bowling at the Oval and Old Trafford. However, he took eight wickets at Lord's and made his only Test fifty at the Oval. In 1889, Lohmann again took over 200 wickets (115 for 1485 runs in purely county matches) and took nine wickets in an innings for the first time against Sussex.
Early County Championship triumphs
In 1890, the County ChampionshipCounty Championship
The County Championship is the domestic first-class cricket competition in England and Wales...
was officially constituted for the first time after years of unofficial "champion" counties (Surrey had been acknowledged as the champion county since 1887). Lohmann continued to carry all before him in 1890, taking a career-best 220 wickets and being the leading wicket-taker outside of touring teams for the sixth successive year (a feat bettered only by Tich Freeman
Tich Freeman
Alfred Percy "Tich" Freeman was an English cricketer. A leg spin bowler for Kent and England, he is the only man to take 300 wickets in an English season, and is the second most prolific wicket taker in first class cricket history.-Career:Freeman's common name comes from his extremely short...
between 1928 and 1935). For Surrey in county cricket he totalled 113 wickets, and he again helped England to victory over Australia in the only Tests where cricket took place. In 1891, Lohmann was the leading English wicket-taker for the seventh successive year with 177 wickets as Surrey carried all before them in a wet summer, and on the following year's Australian tour, he again bowled wonderfully well, taking eight for 58 on a dry wicket in Sydney.
In 1892, with Surrey still crushing all opposition in the County Championship race, Lohmann "suffered only by comparison with previous years" (Wisden
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom...
). He surprisingly ceded the position of Surrey's chief bowler to the emergent William Lockwood
William Lockwood
William 'Bill' Lockwood William 'Bill' Lockwood William 'Bill' Lockwood (William Henry Lockwood; born 25 March 1868, Radford, Nottingham; died 26 April 1932, Radford, Nottingham was a fast bowler and the unpredictable, occasionally devastating counterpart to the amazingly hard-working Tom...
who took full advantage of Oval pitches being extremely fiery and untrue due to reconditioning of the square, but it still seemed as though Lohmann had many years of county and Test cricket ahead of him. A rude shock to Surrey was to come, however.
Illness and comeback
After the 1892 season had ended, a dreadful shock came when it was announced that Lohmann had contracted tuberculosisTuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
. In an effort to improve his health, Lohmann sailed during the 1892/1893 winter to Cape Town
Cape Town
Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...
. Although at first it was hoped that he might return even when the 1893 season began, for two years Lohmann's health did not at first improve and he could not play at all for Surrey in 1893 or 1894. In fact, Lohmann was not well enough to play any cricket until the 1894/1895 Currie Cup final where he turned out for Western Province.
By July 1895 his health had recovered sufficiently for him to return to England and play for Surrey again. Fortuitously, Lohmann's return coincided with a return to extremely treacherous wickets after a long spell of dry weather and much better pitches than Lohmann had ever bowled on before. Though completely overshadowed by Tom Richardson
Tom Richardson
Tom Richardson was an English cricketer. A fast bowler, Richardson relied to a great extent on the break-back , a relatively long run-up and high arm which allowed him to gain sharp lift on fast pitches even from the full, straight length he always bowled...
, the mere fact of missing the good wickets in May and June caused Lohmann to actually beat Richardson in the averages, though his batting (seen as an important part of his county cricket up to 1892) was completely insignificant.
Record breaking feats
Returning to South Africa to maintain his health, Lohmann played no more first-class cricket until February, yet on the matting wickets in three "Tests" (the England eleven was no more than England "A" of today), Lohmann was so unplayable that he took 35 wickets for the remarkable average of just 5.80 runs each. During this series Lohmann twice broke the record for best analysis in Test cricket: he took 15 for 45 in the first Test, including a hat trickHat Trick
Hat trick, hat-trick or hattrick may refer to:* hat-trick — in various sports, achieving three goals, wickets, etc. in a single match* Hattrick — online football management game** Hattrick Limited — producers of this game...
(the fourth Test cricket hat-trick
Test cricket hat-tricks
This is a list of all hat-tricks in Test cricket; that is, the occasions when a bowler has taken three wickets in consecutive deliveries in Test cricket matches. As of 30 July 2011, a hat-trick has been taken 39 times since the first Test match in 1877, most recently by English fast-medium bowler...
) at the end of the second innings to win the match; and after not being put on initially in the second Test, he became the first bowler to take nine wickets in a Test innings (a feat subsequently emulated only 14 times and surpassed only twice).
In 1896, Lohmann began to play for Surrey at the end of May, and, though he took 93 wickets and helped Richardson to put Australia out for 53 on a good wicket at Lord's, it was thought he had not come up to expectations. Indeed, on several occasions when pitches were suited to him (against Middlesex
Middlesex County Cricket Club
Middlesex 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 Middlesex. It was announced in February 2009 that Middlesex changed their limited overs name from the Middlesex Crusaders, to the...
at The Oval, Somerset
Somerset County Cricket Club
Somerset 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 Somerset...
at Taunton and 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...
at Manchester), his bowling should have met with much greater success. Still, he had a fully satisfactory benefit in the game against Yorkshire in August.
A pay dispute, in which he demanded twice the existing 10-pound match fee given at the time to professional cricketers caused Lohmann, along with Billy Gunn
Billy Gunn (cricketer)
William "Billy" Gunn was an English sportsman who played internationally in both cricket and football. In first-class cricket, Gunn played professionally for Nottinghamshire from 1880 to 1904 and represented England in 11 Test matches...
to withdraw from the last Test match. He continued to play for Surrey that August, but at the end of the season his health again degenerated and he had to return to South Africa and a continuation of the 1896 pay dispute caused Lohmann to retire from his English career for good.
Last days
Lohmann emigrated to South AfricaSouth Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
permanently in 1897 and played a full season of first-class cricket for Western Province. In five matches on matting pitches during March 1897 he took 34 wickets for 12.26 runs each, but it was clear throughout that year that his health was unlikely to recover, and he was able to play only one further first-class match for "A Bailey's Transvaal XI".
However, Lohmann did come back to England in 1901 to manage the second South African touring team (and the first whose matches were recognised as first-class). However, his health was clearly never going to recover completely, and even after returning to Cape Town with the onset of autumn in England, Lohmann's condition only became more critical. On 1 December 1901, the tuberculosis he had fought against for nine years finally claimed his life at age 36.
Awards
- Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1889 (actually titled Six Great Bowlers Of The Year).
Further reading
- Keith BoothKeith Booth (scorer)Keith Booth is a cricket writer and scorer. He has been the principal scorer for Surrey County Cricket Club since 1995.Like Geoffrey Boycott, Dickie Bird and Michael Parkinson, he comes from Barnsley, and like them he inherited a love of cricket. He has previously scored for Middlesex and MCC and...
, George Lohmann, Pioneer Professional, SportsBooks Ltd, 2007, ISBN 978-1899807505.