Players from the past - No.1 R.E.S. Wyatt

Posted by Tony Hutton

During a recent visit to Edgbaston cricket ground I did my customary circuit of what is now a stadium rather than a cricket ground and came across the R.E.S. Wyatt stand and hospitality area.
It occurred to me that a lot of people would not know who this gentleman was, as he played for Warwickshire and captained England before the Second World War. I was aware of him as captain of Worcestershire in the early 1950s during my schooldays in the Midlands.

Strangely enough I came across him again yesterday while researching Manny Martindale, the West Indian fast bowler and his two sons, who did not play first class cricket but were professionals in the Lancashire League. All three of them played in a benefit match for Alf Valentine, the West Indian spin bowler of the 1950s when he was professional at Walsall cricket club in the Birmingham League. Although not much of a batsman Alf tried hard to coach me to bat as a junior member at Walsall. Needless to say he was not very successful.

Reading up on Manny Martindale I discovered that he had broken R.E.S. Wyatt's jaw in four places in a match in Jamaica in 1935. Wyatt was carried unconscious from the field and when he came round he signalled for a piece of paper on which he wrote that Martindale was in no way to blame and continued writing out a revised batting order.

                    Bob Wyatt.

Robert Elliott Storey Wyatt, generally known as Bob, was born in 1901 and died at the grand old age of 93 when he was England's oldest living Test cricketer. He was the cousin of  Labour politician and broadcaster Woodrow Wyatt. He captained Warwickshire from 1930 to 1937 and first captained England in the final Test against Australia in 1930. However Douglas Jardine then took over for the infamous Bodyline tour of Australia and Wyatt was his vice captain.

Wyatt, centre of front row, captained the Gentleman against the Players at Lords in 1934.

When Jardine resigned following the controversy of the Bodyline series, Wyatt took over again and captained England in fifteen of his forty Tests. He was a determined batsman with a first class average of over 40, as well as a useful medium pace bowler, taking over nine hundred first class wickets. I remember well as a schoolboy seeing this apparently ancient figure (to me) leading Worcester out of the pavilion swathed in early season sweaters and going about his business in a calm and leisurely way which suited the atmosphere of county cricket in the 1940s and 50s.

I particularly remember reading in the local press an account of his penultimate county game before retirement. It was against Somerset at Taunton in 1951 and Worcester needed six to win off the last ball of the game. One press report stated 'he duly drove it high into the pavilion for victory'. He was then fifty years old.

He was an amateur player at the time the social distinction still existed but very professional in his approach to the game. Just before the war he was appointed assistant secretary at Warwickshire to supplement his income but fell out with the secretary of the time as he was accused of fraternising too much with the professionals. In later life he became chairman of the Test selectors before retiring to obscurity in Cornwall but was brought back into the cricketing fold to help celebrate the centenary Ashes Test at Lord's in 1990.