Jack Walsh (cricketer)
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Walcha, New South Wales
Wallsend, New South Wales
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| Personal information | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Full name | John Edward Walsh | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | 4 December 1912 Walcha, New South Wales | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Died | 20 May 1980 (aged 67) Wallsend, New South Wales | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Batting | Left-handed | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Bowling | Slow left-arm wrist-spin | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Career statistics | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Source: Cricinfo, 17 September 2013 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
John Edward Walsh (4 December 1912 – 20 May 1980) was an Australian cricketer who played nearly all of his cricket in England.
An aggressive late-order left-handed batsman and a bowler of slow left-arm wrist-spin and googlies (of two varieties), Walsh was brought out of Australian club cricket in 1936 to play as an amateur member of the side taken by the Nottinghamshire cricket impresario Sir Julien Cahn to tour Sri Lanka.[1] Cahn's sides played some first-class matches on this and other tours and in English seasons across the 1930s and over the next three years, Walsh took more than 600 wickets for Cahn's sides,[2] touring New Zealand in 1938–39 and playing three seasons in England. He also played a few matches for Leicestershire between 1937 and 1939. Leicestershire's extreme weakness in spin[3] meant his absence for business reasons[4] was consistently regretted.[5]
When war broke out, Walsh returned to Australia for the 1939–40 season, playing with Petersham in Sydney[6] and played two matches for New South Wales without much success[7] – these would be his only first-class matches in Australia. Walsh then would serve for the remainder of World War II with the R.A.A.F. in the Pacific.[8]
In 1946, with Cahn having died, Walsh returned to England and became for the next eleven seasons a professional with Leicestershire.[9] He immediately became the county's principal wicket-taker and enlivened many innings with a robust approach to batting. Walsh took over 100 wickets in seven of the first eight postwar seasons. Besides being the leading first-class wicket-taker in 1948 with 174,[10] his total of 170 wickets is still the Leicestershire county record for a single season. In 1952, he also scored 1106 runs, to complete the all-rounder's double. He bowled left-handed wrist spin, with two googlies: "one, which could easily be detected, to lull the batsman into a sense of security, when he would unleash the other, which was calculated to deceive even the greatest batsmen".[11]
He retired after the 1956 season and later coached Tasmania and Scotland.[12] He also coached Oxford University in 1955.