Haydn Sully (1 November 1939 – 14 December 2006) was a first-class

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 for

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lord_ ...

and

Northamptonshire Northamptonshire (; abbreviated Northants.) is a county in the East Midlands of England. In 2015, it had a population of 723,000. The county is administered by two unitary authorities: North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire. It is ...

from 1959 to 1969. A left-handed tail-end batsman and a right-arm off-break bowler, Sully played for Somerset occasionally from 1959 to 1963, but was unable to win a regular place with the presence of

Brian Langford Brian Anthony Langford (17 December 1935 – 12 February 2013) was an English first-class cricket, first-class cricketer who played as an off-spin bowler for Somerset County Cricket Club, Somerset. He captained the county from 1969 until 1971 and ...

, also an off-spinner, in the team. He joined Northamptonshire in 1964, and the following season, coming into the side regularly from mid-July, took 42 wickets at an average of 18 each, including 27 in just three matches. Northamptonshire finished second in the

County Championship The County Championship (referred to as the LV= Insurance County Championship for sponsorship reasons) is the domestic first-class cricket competition in England and Wales and is organised by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB). It bec ...

, four points behind the eventual winners,

Worcestershire Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a county in the West Midlands of England. The area that is now Worcestershire was absorbed into the unified Kingdom of England in 927, at which time it was constituted as a county (see His ...

, the closest the team has ever come to winning the title. In 1966, Sully played the full season and took 101 wickets at 21 runs each, the only time he took 100 wickets in a season. He was awarded his county cap as the side's leading wicket-taker. He played regularly for Northamptonshire in both the 1967 and 1968 seasons, but though he took 80 wickets in 1967, the average had risen to more than 30, and his 51 wickets in 1968 cost more than 34 runs each. He played only a few matches in 1969 and left first-class cricket at the end of the season. Settling in Devon where he worked for Whiteways Cyder, Sully played a few times for

Devon Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devon is ...

in the

Minor Counties The National Counties, known as the Minor Counties before 2020, are the cricketing counties of England and Wales that do not have first-class status. The game is administered by the National Counties Cricket Association (NCCA), which comes unde ...

in 1970 and 1971, and captained the

Sidmouth Sidmouth () is a town on the English Channel in Devon, South West England, southeast of Exeter. With a population of 12,569 in 2011, it is a tourist resort and a gateway to the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site. A large part of the town has ...

cricket club for several years.

References

Wisden Cricketers' Almanack ''Wisden Cricketers' Almanack'', or simply ''Wisden'', colloquially the Bible of Cricket, is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom. The description "bible of cricket" was first used in the 1930s by Alec Waugh in a ...

, 1960 to 1970 editions
CricketArchive.com

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sully, Haydn 1939 births 2006 deaths English cricketers Somerset cricketers Northamptonshire cricketers Devon cricketers People from West Somerset (district) Cricketers from Somerset