A sad end

posted by John Winn

If the above image seems a little familiar then it may be because I used it in a posting I made in January. The man in question is William Wilfrid Whysall, a stalwart of Notts for over twenty years and one whose career and life were brought to an end by a seemingly innocuous accident. He featured in my previous posting by virtue of topping his native counties' runscorers in 1927, and it was to my embarrassment that at that time I had no knowledge of 'Dodge' as he was known, despite him having played four tests, all against Australia

Whysall was born at Woodborough, a village seven miles north east of Nottingham, in 1887 and when 21 he joined the ground staff at Trent Bridge. Despite this relatively late start and three first class matches in 1910 when only once did he pass fifty, it was not until after World War 1 that he really emerged to become Notts' most reliable batsman in the twenties. In his last season, 1930, he made nearly 3000 runs and averaged almost 50. Whysall had a second string to his bow for he was a useful wicketkeeper and toured Australia under Gilligan in 24-25 and in the third test which England lost by 11 runs he top scored in the second innings with 75. After three tests on this tour and with an average of 37.20 'Dodge' might have considered himself unlucky not to have been selected again until 1930  when he played in the final Ashes test at The Oval. Despite scoring over 400 in the first innings England lost by an innings largely thanks to a double century by Bradman. Whysall made two very modest contributions, coming in  at three after Hobbs, in his last test, and Sutcliffe had opened. Salt was rubbed into WWW's wounds by criticisms of his fielding, a weakness in his game that Wisden had commented on as far back as 1911.

Notts' averages for 1930 show Whysall top and well ahead of the other batsmen and the feeling was that despite his 43 years and lack of mobility there were still plenty of runs to come from a solid defence based on a very open stance. Alas this was not be for in November of that year Whysall went to a dance in Mansfield and where he slipped and injured his elbow, Sepsis set in and a fortnight after the accident William died in hospital in Nottingham. Large crowds attended his funeral and a posthumous benefit raised nearly £1400 for his widow and children, a record for the county at that time.

Whysall's record shows he made 51 centuries, four in successive innings in his last season and he was amongst the five Wisden cricketers in 1925. Let Wisden have the final word in this extract from his portrait of that year.

'Whysall is a product of the new school, facing the bowler in the ultra-modern fashion. For this reason he will never look quite as good as he is. Otherwise he would not make such big scores.'