John William Hearne (known as Jack Hearne, J. W. Hearne and Young Jack to distinguish him from his ''distant'' cousin,
J. T. Hearne
John Thomas Hearne (3 May 1867 – 17 April 1944)
cricinfo.com (known as Jack Hearne, J. T. Hearne or Old Jack Hearne ...
; 11 February 1891 – 14 September 1965) was a Middlesex leg-spinning
all-rounder
An all-rounder is a cricketer who regularly performs well at both batting and bowling. Although all bowlers must bat and quite a handful of batsmen do bowl occasionally, most players are skilled in only one of the two disciplines and are consi ...
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 str ...
er who played from 1909 to 1936, and represented
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
in 24 Test matches between 1911 and 1926.
A skilful right-handed
batsman
In cricket, batting is the act or skill of hitting the cricket ball, ball with a cricket bat, bat to score runs (cricket), runs and prevent the dismissal (cricket), loss of one's wicket. Any player who is currently batting is, since Septembe ...
, Hearne was exceptionally straight and a master at placing the ball into gaps. He was not an aggressive batsman, but his skill allowed him to score at quite an efficient rate against the best bowling. He bowled
leg spin
Leg spin is a type of spin bowling in cricket. A leg spinner bowls right-arm with a wrist spin action. The leg spinner's normal delivery causes the ball to spin from right to left (from the bowler's perspective) when the ball bounces on the ...
from a very short run-up, but had such speed of action that he was almost medium pace.
He was born on 11 February 1891 in
Hillingdon
Hillingdon is an area of Uxbridge within the London Borough of Hillingdon, centred 14.2 miles (22.8 km) west of Charing Cross. It was an ancient parish in Middlesex that included the market town of Uxbridge. During the 1920s the civ ...
, and was highly successful in local games even as a teenager, so that Middlesex engaged him soon after his eighteenth birthday in 1909. He was an immediate success with his sharp spin, coming second in the Middlesex averages behind
Frank Tarrant, whilst in 1910, though erratic, he accomplished a sensational performance against Essex, taking 7 wickets for 2 runs in 25 balls. That year, still a teenager, Hearne made two hundred for Middlesex, and in the dry summer of 1911, he went from strength to strength. His major feats that year were 234 against Somerset, 6 for 17 against Essex and nine wickets in nine overs for 40 runs against Surrey, all at
Lord's. In all, he took 102 wickets and scored 1627 runs at an average of 42.81, and was named as a
Cricketer of the Year by
Wisden
''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 ...
.
In 1911/1912, Hearne toured Australia with one of the strongest England sides ever. He played in all the
Tests, but was utterly hopeless as a bowler on Australian pitches both then and in 1920/1921 and 1924/1925, and it is not really clear why. He had the spin and the pace from the ground to succeed on rock-hard pitches, but he lacked flight and could rarely persist for long enough to be effective in a long struggle. As a batsman, he did very well in the first two Tests, with 114 at the
Melbourne Cricket Ground, his only Test hundred. He became the youngest England player to score a Test century, a record broken only by
Denis Compton in 1938. Hearne's and Compton's Test centuries remain the only ones scored by England players before their 21st birthday. In Hearne's case, however, his performances against Australia declined sharply afterwards.
In the following years, Hearne's all-round cricket, along with that of
Frank Tarrant was a remarkable combination only paralleled by
George Herbert Hirst
George Herbert Hirst (7 September 1871 – 10 May 1954) was a professional English cricketer who played first-class cricket for Yorkshire County Cricket Club between 1891 and 1921, with a further appearance in 1929. One of the best all-r ...
and
Wilfred Rhodes
Wilfred Rhodes (29 October 1877 – 8 July 1973) was an English professional cricketer who played 58 Test matches for England between 1899 and 1930. In Tests, Rhodes took 127 wickets and scored 2,325 runs, becoming the first Englishman ...
at Yorkshire. Though his opportunities were restricted in 1912, the following two years Hearn accomplished the remarkable feat of scoring 2000 runs and taking 100 wickets in a season, and he went to South Africa in 1913/1914. On the matting wickets, his bowling was much more formidable than in Australia, but with
S. F. Barnes in irresistible form, he was barely needed.
After a disappointing season in 1919, Hearne's all-round play won Middlesex the County Championship in 1920, but, like all English spin bowlers of the time, he was remarkably hopeless on the rock-hard Australian wickets and accomplished little even with the bat. His bowling was affected by injury in 1921, but for the following three years his position as one of the country's premier all-rounders remained intact, with his batting skill on rain-affected wickets having few equals. However, from 1925 his bowling skill declined, though he was good enough as a batsman for England selection in 1926, and he remained a force to be reckoned with in county cricket into the 1930s – despite a major injury when fielding in 1928. In 1929, Hearne hit 285 not out against Essex at Leyton and on a very dusty wicket at Chesterfield in 1933 recalled his former bowling skill by taking 9 for 61, the best figures of his career.
Derbyshire v Middlesex, County Championship 1933
Cricketarchive.com. Retrieved 2018-04-21.
However, from this time Hearne was losing his batting skill as well as his bowling, and his averages in the very favourable summers of 1933 and 1934 suggested his days were numbered. His poor form on the leatherjacket-infested wickets at Lord's in 1935 led to him being dropped during July, and after a short recall, after the opening match of 1936.
Over his career Hearne played in 465 first-class matches and batted in 744 innings (73 not out). He scored 27,612 runs at an average of 41.15, with a highest score of 285 not out. He scored 71 centuries and 115 half-centuries. He took 240 catches. He took 1.438 wickets off 72,082 deliveries at an average of 23.15 with a best bowling analysis of 9 wickets for 61 runs. He took five wickets in an innings
In cricket, a five-wicket haul (also known as a "five–for" or "fifer") occurs when a bowler takes five or more wickets in a single innings. This is regarded by critics as a notable achievement, equivalent to a century from a batsman.
Taki ...
on 88 occasions and ten wickets in a match
In cricket, a ten-wicket haul occurs when a bowler takes ten wickets in either a single innings or across both innings of a two-innings match. The phrase ten wickets in a match is also used.
Taking ten wickets in a match at Lord's earns the bowle ...
17 times.
After he was released by Middlesex at the end of that year, Hearne became a life member of the Marylebone Cricket Club
Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) is a cricket club founded in 1787 and based since 1814 at Lord's Cricket Ground, which it owns, in St John's Wood, London. The club was formerly the governing body of cricket retaining considerable global influence ...
(MCC) in 1949. He died on 14 September 1965 in West Drayton
West Drayton is a suburban town in the London Borough of Hillingdon. It was an ancient parish in the county of Middlesex and from 1929 was part of the Yiewsley and West Drayton Urban District, which became part of Greater London in 1965. The se ...
.
References
External links
First-class batting
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hearne, John William
1891 births
1965 deaths
England Test cricketers
English cricketers
Middlesex cricketers
Players cricketers
Wisden Cricketers of the Year
Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers
English cricketers of 1919 to 1945
H. D. G. Leveson Gower's XI cricketers
Players of the South cricketers
C. I. Thornton's XI cricketers
Lord Londesborough's XI cricketers
P. F. Warner's XI cricketers
Marylebone Cricket Club Australian Touring Team cricketers
Marylebone Cricket Club South African Touring Team cricketers