Alfred Edward Bailey (14 March 1871 – 1 August 1950) was a professional

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

er who played first-class cricket for

Somerset County Cricket Club Somerset County Cricket Club is one of eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Somerset. Founded in 1875, Somerset was initially regarded as a minor ...

from 1900 to 1911 as slow left-arm spin bowler.

Cricket career

Bailey played for

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...

in second eleven matches in the early to mid-1890s, but made no first-class appearances for the side. In 1900, he played in two matches in the north of England for Somerset in the space of a week; he took only one wicket in these games, both of which were lost heavily. He reappeared in the Somerset side halfway through the 1905 season and then for the next two years was a fairly regular member of what was a very weak side. In his second match of the season, against Hampshire he took seven first innings wickets for 113 runs in a high-scoring game. Two games later, in his first home match for Somerset, he took eight Middlesex wickets for 67 runs and followed that with three of the four Middlesex wickets to fall in the second innings to finish with match figures of 11 for 78. And in his final game of the season, against Warwickshire at Taunton he took six for 67 in 38 overs, bowling throughout the Warwickshire innings. His 29 wickets in five matches at an average of 15.31 put him at the head of Somerset's bowling figures for the season. The first match of the 1906 season saw the same opponents at the same venue as the last game of 1905, and Bailey did even better against Warwickshire than before: he took five for 59 in the first innings and then six wickets for six runs (in 8.4 overs) in the second to finish with match figures of 11 for 65, the best match figures of his career. There were nine wickets in the next game against

Sussex Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...

Bath Bath may refer to: * Bathing, immersion in a fluid ** Bathtub, a large open container for water, in which a person may wash their body ** Public bathing, a public place where people bathe * Thermae, ancient Roman public bathing facilities Plac ...

, including a first innings return of six for 118. But though Bailey remained in the side for the rest of the season, there were no further successes and he did not take five wickets in an innings again in the season. He finished with a total of 65 wickets at the relatively high average for the time of 26.29. The 1907 season followed a similar pattern, in that Bailey's first appearance of the season was sensational and the rest was disappointment. In Somerset's first match, against Yorkshire at Taunton, he took eight wickets for 46 runs in the first innings, plus the only wicket that fell in Yorkshire's second innings: the innings return was the best of his career. The fall-off in performance, though, was even more marked than in 1906 and he lost his place in the side well before the end of the season. In 1908, 1909 and 1910, Bailey was playing cricket in Scotland and he made appearances in first-class matches for the

Scottish national cricket team The Scotland national cricket team represents the country of Scotland. They play their home matches at The Grange, Edinburgh, and also some other venues. Scotland became Associate Members of the International Cricket Council (ICC) in 1994

against Nottinghamshire in 1908 and against the Australians in 1909. There were only minor matches in 1910, but in 1911, he reappeared again for Somerset in two late-season games, without success. Those were his final first-class appearances.

Cricket career

References

Further reading