by Arunabha Sengupta
His father played for Old Hill in the Birmingham League and was a certified cricket tragic. Hence, when the family was on a holiday at Rhyl in North Wales, and the eight-year-old was bowling on the lawn in an impromptu game, one of the residents asked: “Does that fair boy bowling out there belong to anyone here? Do you know he’s bowling googlies?”
His headmaster thought he was playing too much cricket and took him out of the school eleven. The boy discussed it with his father and they agreed he should leave school and join the dad’s plumbing business. After all, not many required plumbing in the summer and there would be plenty of time for cricket.
Without the mother being aware, father and son played cricket for Old Hill every Thursday. It was a disaster when his sister’s marriage was fixed on a Thursday. How would they get to the game? The old man promptly organised the wedding for nine in the morning. The reception was over in time. They were off for the match. Eric Hollies, having guzzled champagne for the first time in his life, captured six for 5 in the game.
He trialled for both Worcestershire and Warwickshire. After the trial for the former, he sat watching the county match against the Notts. Larwood and Voce were at them, and Hollies felt that the Worcestershire team was not really a good one. Hence he joined the staff at Edgbaston. On debut, he was fielding at gully when a square cut by Duleepsinhji knocked him flat. Another such stroke zoomed at him and struck him on the knee. His hand jerked down to rub the sting, and the ball popped up and lodged in his grip. He had taken his first catch.
Those days slow bowling meant tossing it up slow and towards the off side, trying to lure the batsmen. He did so against Gloucestershire in the Wagon Works Ground. Wally Hammond hit him to the remote parts of the county, 57 in six overs. On the bus home he looked at Sports Argus. Hammond hammers Hollies, the headlines screamed. He looked around surreptitiously, wondering if other passengers could recognise him.
It was a moment of epiphany though. He changed the manner of bowling. He started shutting batsmen up, make them look for runs at his dictation. He studied batsmen and worked out how to block each one’s favourite strokes.
Hammond faced him again the following year, well set and past 50 by the time he was put on. He straight drove him hard and high. Arthur Croom caught him in the deep. Eric Hollies 8 for 54. His most memorable wicket alongside that other famous one.
Hollies went to West Indies that winter, a perilous voyage on a sort of banana boat. In the Georgetown Test he captured 7 for 50. However, after those 3 Tests of 1934-35, his next one was in 1947.
He got injured in Swansea, because a teammate entered the wrong room and without switching on the light plonked down on the bed where he was sleeping. His neck was wrenched out of place.
Gubby Allen told him he was looking at him for the Australia tour in 1936-37. However, the summer of 1936 was wet and Hollies was bowled less. His only season with less than 100 wickets between 1935 and 1953. Jim Sims went in his place.
And when Lord Tennyson asked him whether he wanted to go on MCC’s tour to India in 1937-38, the Warwickshire secretary asked him to refuse because he would be too tired for the next season. They offered him a job in compensation. Hollies discovered that it was in a sawmill and the foreman was missing a finger. He never went again.
In the meantime Doug Wright emerged in Kent, and Hitler in Germany.
On return to Test cricket in 1947, Hollies captured 5 for 123 against South Africa at Nottingham.
And then of course there was the Oval Test against Australia. “I’ve bowled the best fucking ball of the season and they are clapping him,” he grumbled as Don Bradman walked back for a duck in his last Test innings, castled by his googly. Very few remember Arthur Morris got 196 that innings. Still fewer remember Hollies picked up 5 for 133.
He captured 5 wickets in Tests one more time. When with Bob Berry for company he outspun Ramadhin and Valentine, giving England the only win in the 1950 Tests at Manchester.
44 wickets in 13 Tests at 30.37 … and characteristically 37 runs. In first-class cricket he scored 1673 runs at 4.99, and captured 2323 wickets at 20.94.
In 14 seasons he captured more than 100 wickets. In 17 seasons he managed less runs than wickets. Yet he never forgot to remind one and all that against Barbados in 1934-35 he had scored 14, while Hammond had managed 2, Hendren 9, Leyland 12, Iddon 0 and Jim Smith 8.
He later wrote Let Me Spin You a Tale, one of the delightful cricketing autobiographies.
Eric Hollies was born on 5 June 1912