Norman Yardley

He served on the Yorkshire Cricket Committee, and from 1981, he was Yorkshire President. However, he became involved in the controversy surrounding Geoffrey Boycott, to whom the committee had decided not to give a new contract. Yardley resigned early in 1984 after a vote of no confidence, dismayed by the attitude of Boycott's supporters. Anthony Woodhouse wrote in his history of Yorkshire: "he conducted affairs in a fair and unbiased manner. Alas, he should never have been burdened with the politics of Yorkshire cricket in the 1980s." He died at Lodge Moor, Sheffield on 3 October 1989 following a stroke.

Yardley worked as a wine merchant outside cricket. After his retirement from playing he worked as a cricket journalist and served as an expert summariser on Test Match Special from 1956 until 1969, as well as in 1973. According to David Frith, the only time he was moved to express severe disapproval was when Brian Close was dismissed after a poor shot in the Fourth Test in 1961 at Old Trafford; this was part of a final-day England collapse that handed Australia the match and a 2–1 series win after the hosts had been on course for victory and the series lead. Trevor Bailey, who was a colleague in the commentary box for the later part of Yardley's time with Test Match Special, wrote: "I always considered Norman Yardley to be an ideal summariser: accurate, informative and very sensible, and able to explain not only what happened but also the reasons why. His knowledge about pitches, tactics and the technicalities of the game was exceptional... Articulate, expert, and possessing considerable charge [sic], I thought his interpretation of events on the field and his post-session summaries were sound, balanced and never less than fair."

Yorkshire finished second in the County Championship to Warwickshire in the 1951 season and second to Surrey in the 1952 season. However, in following season, Yorkshire dropped to equal twelfth, their worst ever finish at that time. In the following two seasons, the team were again runners up, Surrey winning on both occasions. Yardley scored more than 850 runs in each season, but only managed two more centuries. These were 183 not out against Hampshire in 1951, the highest innings of his career, and an unbeaten score of exactly 100 against Gloucestershire in his final season. His batting average was generally between 24 and 31, except in 1953 when in matches in England he averaged 36.53. Yardley used himself as a bowler more often in 1951 and 1952, delivering more overs than any other time in his career in the latter year. He took 32 and 43 wickets respectively in each season, his highest two season totals, and taking five wickets in an innings on three occasions, having only done so twice before. However, he bowled less often during his final three seasons, with a subsequent drop in his tally of wickets. His only representative cricket, apart from annual matches at the Scarborough Festival for the Gentlemen against the Players and occasionally for T. N. Pearce's XI, was the Gentlemen v Players match at Lord's in 1954.

Between 1951 and 1954, Yardley served as a Test selector, serving as chairman in 1952 at the time when Hutton was chosen as England captain. Following the 1955 season, aged 40 and increasingly bothered by lumbago, Yardley retired from the team. He ended his first-class career with 18,173 runs at an average of 31.17, and 279 wickets at an average of 30.48. Wisden later described him as "the finest Yorkshire amateur since F. S. Jackson".

Yardley's batting form dipped in the 1950 season. He scored 1,082 runs at an average of 24.59, the final time he reached four figures in a season. With the ball he took 19 wickets at an average of 32.10. Yorkshire finished third in the County Championship behind joint winners Lancashire and Surrey. It took seven matches for Yardley to reach fifty runs in an innings, but he hit centuries against Surrey, Somerset and Scotland in the second half of the season. The West Indies toured England and Yardley resumed the England captaincy; he also captained MCC against the tourists and England against The Rest in a Test trial. However, neither Yardley nor Mann, the two likeliest candidates, were able to accept the captaincy of the MCC side in Australia that winter. The selectors spent much of the season assessing other players. Although Yardley represented the Gentlemen against the Players, the side was led by Brown, who scored a century and was appointed captain of the touring side. Brown also assumed the captaincy of England for the final Test against West Indies and Yardley was left out of the team. In the three Tests he played, Yardley scored 108 runs at an average of 18.00 with a top score of 41. He won the first Test but lost the next two, West Indies' first Test wins in England; the final Test was also lost by Brown. Following this series, Yardley did not play any more Tests, although his name was mentioned as a potential captain in 1953 before Hutton was appointed as England's first professional captain of the twentieth century. At the time, Yardley was still considered the best amateur candidate. In 20 Tests, Yardley scored 812 runs at an average of 25.37 and four fifties. With the ball, he took 21 wickets at an average of 33.66. On the fourteen occasions he was captain, he won four times, lost seven and drew three.

Following Brian Sellers resignation, Yardley was appointed Yorkshire captain at the start of the 1948 season. With his England commitments and other absences, he only played in 12 County Championship matches. He had not toured the West Indies with MCC in 1947–48, when Gubby Allen captained the side. However, Yardley resumed his leadership of England when Australia, captained by Bradman, toured the country without losing a match. Yardley led the MCC in an early match against the tourists, and captained England in a Test trial, but only played three other games, all for Yorkshire, before the first Test, with a top score of 46.

Yardley's only other representative appearance in 1948 was as captain of the Gentlemen against the Players at Lords, where he scored 61. In the whole season, he scored 1,061 runs at an average of 29.47 and 14 wickets at an average of 35.14—he took just five wickets outside of the Tests.

Yardley was unavailable to captain the MCC tour of South Africa in the winter of 1948–49, which was led by George Mann. Mann did well enough to retain the position for two Tests in the 1949 season; Freddie Brown captained the other two and Yardley did not play for England that year. In all first-class matches that season, he scored 1,612 runs at an average of 37.48 and took 22 wickets at an average of 33.86. He did not score a century in the County Championship, but passed three figures for Yorkshire against the New Zealand touring team and for the North against the South in a festival match. His only representative game outside of festival matches was for the Gentlemen against the Players at Lord's; Mann was appointed captain for the game. That season, Yorkshire shared the County Championship with Middlesex, the only time Yorkshire won the competition during Yardley's leadership.

Yardley enjoyed his most successful season with the bat in the 1947 season, scoring 1,906 runs at an average of 44.32 with five centuries; his bowling took eleven wickets. Following Hammond's retirement immediately after the 1946–47 tour, Yardley captained England against South Africa throughout the season. In the first Test, he made his highest Test score. England were unexpectedly made to follow on in the face of a large South African total; when Yardley came to the crease in the second innings, England looked likely to be defeated at 170 for four, still 155 runs behind the tourists. Yardley scored 99, being caught in the slips just before reaching his century, but his batting had helped to save the game and earned praise from Wisden for "batting soundly".He eventually became the first test captain to be dismissed for 99 in a test innings Yardley and Denis Compton added 237, which was a record partnership for the fifth wicket in England and remains, in August 2010, England's best fifth wicket stand against South Africa. Yardley's only other score over fifty in the series came in the drawn fifth Test when he scored 59. However, he scored 41 in just over an hour in helpful conditions for fast bowlers in the third Test and 36 on a difficult pitch in the fourth Test. Yardley scored 273 runs at an average of 39.00 in the series. In contrast to his efforts in Australia, he bowled just six overs in the series without taking a wicket. England won the second, third and fourth Tests to win the series, helped by a negative approach from the tourists. Yardley captained the Gentlemen against the Players for the first time, at Lord's and Scarborough, and captained The Rest against Middlesex, the County Champions. His batting and captaincy in the season earned him selection as one of Wisden's Cricketers of the Year.

When County cricket resumed in England in 1946, Yorkshire won the County Championship. Yardley scored 788 runs at an average of 23.17, with just one century, for Yorkshire against Nottinghamshire. With the ball, he was used less frequently than before the war and took only nine wickets. He was not selected for any Test matches, but appeared for England in a Test trial and scored 39 and 11. He also played twice for the MCC and represented the Gentlemen against the Players, making 29 and a duck in a heavy defeat for the amateurs. Critics regarded his season as unsuccessful, but he was chosen as vice-captain to Hammond on the tour to Australia that winter, continuing his pre-war role.

War brought first-class cricket to an end in 1939, and Yardley joined the first battalion of the Green Howards, along with his Yorkshire team-mate Hedley Verity. After training in Omagh, Northern Ireland, where he played several cricket matches with Verity, he served in India, Iran, Syria, Egypt, Sicily, Italy and Iraq. In January 1944, he was wounded in Italy, rejoining the First Battalion in Iraq on his recovery to become an instructor, before being demobilised at the end of the war.

Honours continued to come Yardley's way in the 1938 season. He was chosen to captain Cambridge in his final season in the team; although his side did not win a match, Yardley enjoyed some personal success. Among his fifties were innings of 67 against the touring Australian team and 61 in the University Match. He was included in different representative sides; he was selected in a Test trial, playing for the Rest, and played a second game against the Australians for the Gentlemen of England, although he did not pass fifty in either match. For the Gentlemen against the Players, Yardley scored 88. He did not make the full England side but was twelfth man in two Tests against Australia. His highest innings of the season was 97 for Yorkshire against Gloucestershire, and in all first-class matches, Yardley accumulated 1,217 runs at an average of 31.20 and took 22 wickets at 35.45.

By this stage, Yorkshire regarded Yardley as the heir to Brian Sellers as captain, and the England Test selectors also began to prepare him to assume the England captaincy. At the end of the 1938 season, Yardley was chosen to tour South Africa with MCC as vice-captain to Wally Hammond. He made a good start to the tour, scoring centuries in his first two innings, both surpassing his previous highest score. Wisden noted that he made a good impression on spectators in these early matches. In his fourth match, he captained the MCC in Hammond's absence for the first time. When Len Hutton was injured in a tour match and missed the first Test, Yardey made his debut but scored just seven runs in a total of 422 and did not bat in the second innings. Hutton returned for the second match, and the successes of other batsmen meant that Yardley was not required in the other Tests on the tour. However, he scored a third century when he captained the MCC against Border.

Yardley continued to make progress in his batting in 1937. For Cambridge, he scored fifties against the Army and Surrey. Against Hampshire he took four for 47 and five for 41, and when Cambridge collapsed to 35 for six chasing a victory target of 141, he scored 64 not out to take the side to a win. Playing Sussex, he scored a century and took four for 36, while in the University match, he scored 101 in two and a half hours. Yardley's form saw him selected for the Gentlemen against the Players at Lord's, although he scored only 7 and 4, and when he joined Yorkshire after the Cambridge season, he made his first century for the county against Surrey, as well as three other fifties. His overall first-class figures were 1,472 runs at an average of 33.45 and 31 wickets at an average of 21.87. He was picked for the winter MCC tour of India, under the captaincy of Lord Tennyson, where he scored 519 runs at an average 25.95 but only took one wicket. No official Tests were played on the tour, but Yardley played in the representative matches which took place, scoring 96 in the first game, but his highest score in four other innings was 31.

Yardley played schoolboy cricket at St Peter's, York. A highly talented all-round sportsman, he went to St John's College, Cambridge, and won Blues at cricket, squash, Rugby fives and field hockey. In the university matches, he scored 90 in his second year, 101 in his third and was captain for his final year. He made his Yorkshire debut in 1936 and played for the county until 1955, when he retired as a player. He made his Test match debut against South Africa in 1939 and after the Second World War was chosen as vice-captain to Wally Hammond on the 1946—47 tour of Australia where he captained England in the fifth Test. He followed Hammond as skipper in 1947, and captained England intermittently until 1950 when his business commitments allowed. In 1948 he succeeded to the Yorkshire leadership when Brian Sellers resigned. Yardley remained in the position until 1955, during a time when Yorkshire had several difficult players in their dressing room. Under Yardley, Yorkshire were joint champions in 1949 but subsequently on a number of occasions, too often for the liking of supporters, finished second to Surrey in the County Championship. He served as a Test match selector between 1951 and 1954, acting as chairman of selectors in 1952. He was President of Yorkshire C.C.C. from 1981 to 1983, when he resigned after becoming involved in controversy over the decision to release Geoffrey Boycott in 1983. He died after a stroke in 1989.

Leaving St Peter's School, Yardley went to St John's College, Cambridge University, where he immediately began to show all-round ability at sports. He won the North of England Squash Championships every year between 1934 and 1939, and won his Blue in hockey, squash, and Rugby fives. However, his main distinction came from cricket, where he was a Blue in each his four years at Cambridge. He played for the University team in his first year, the 1935 season, making ten first-class appearances without much success. His Wisden obituary noted that "class rather than performance guaranteed his place." He made his first-class debut against Sussex, scoring a duck in his first innings and 24 runs in the second. He passed fifty on just one occasion that season, scoring 319 runs at an average of 16.78, and bowled 69 balls without taking a wicket. Nevertheless, he played in the University Match, scoring just 19 and 36.

Norman Walter Dransfield Yardley (19 March 1915 – 3 October 1989) was an English cricketer who played for Cambridge University, Yorkshire County Cricket Club and England, as a right-handed batsman and occasional bowler. An amateur, he captained Yorkshire from 1948 to 1955 and England on fourteen occasions between 1947 and 1950, winning four Tests, losing seven and drawing three. Yardley was named Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1948 and in his obituary in Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, he was described as Yorkshire's finest amateur since Stanley Jackson.

Yardley was born in Royston, near Barnsley, on 19 March 1915 to a family with no real background in cricket. He was sent to St Peter's, York, where he made a good impression as a cricketer, being in the school team for five years from 1930 and captain in his final two years. In 1933, his first season in charge, he scored 973 runs at an average of 88.45, scoring three centuries in consecutive innings. He headed the bowling averages, with 40 wickets at 11.90 runs per wicket. His form that season saw him selected for the match between Young Amateurs and Young Professionals at Lord's Cricket Ground, in which Yardley scored 189 in his first representative match, playing against his future England team-mate Denis Compton. In 1934, Yardley played in two further representative matches at Lord's, for The Rest against Lord's Schools, and for Public Schools against The Army, making 117, the first century in the fixture for Public Schools, and 63. Wisden Cricketers' Almanack later cited these successes as a demonstration of his ability to perform well on important occasions. While still at school, he came to the attention of Yorkshire County Cricket Club, playing for the Yorkshire Colts side and receiving coaching from George Hirst. He played for Yorkshire Second XI once in 1932, twice in 1933 and twice in 1934.