William Farrimond (23 May 1903 – 15 November 1979) was an English

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 in four Test matches from 1931 to 1935. He was born and died at

Westhoughton Westhoughton ( ) is a town and civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, Greater Manchester, England, southwest of Bolton, east of Wigan and northwest of Manchester.Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancash ...

. Bill Farrimond was widely regarded in the late 1920s and across the 1930s as the second-best

wicketkeeper The wicket-keeper in the sport of cricket is the player on the fielding (cricket), fielding side who stands behind the wicket or stumps being watchful of the batsman and ready to take a Caught, catch, Stumped, stump the batsman out and run out ...

in English

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is one of three or more days' scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officia ...

, but the man regarded as the best was his

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancash ...

colleague

George Duckworth George Duckworth (9 May 1901 – 5 January 1966) was a professional cricketer who played first-class cricket for Lancashire and England. Duckworth, who won his cricketing fame as a wicket-keeper, was born and died in Warrington, Lancashire, an ...

– and for many years both of them were kept out of the England team by Leslie Ames, who was a much better batsman. The result was that Farrimond played only a handful of county matches each season from 1925 to 1937 before, on the retirement of Duckworth, he finally played two full seasons in 1938 and 1939. Despite being second-string wicketkeeper at Lancashire, Farrimond played four Tests. In 1930–31, he was picked as second wicketkeeper to Duckworth on the tour to the

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

, and played in two matches when Duckworth was injured. Four years later, he toured the

West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greate ...

and played one Test, with regular keeper Les Ames playing just as a batsman in that match. His only home Test match was the game at Lord's in 1935 against South Africa, when Ames again played as a batsman only. An unobtrusive wicketkeeper, unlike Duckworth, Farrimond was the second wicketkeeper, after

Tiger Smith Ernest James "Tiger" Smith (6 February 1886 – 31 August 1979) was an English wicket-keeper who played in 11 Tests from 1911/1912 to 1914. In county cricket, he had a much longer career as the successor to Dick Lilley: he played for Warwicks ...

, to make seven dismissals in an innings, then the world record. A useful lower-order batsman, his one century came playing for 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 ...

side. He played one first-class match in 1945, a friendly "Roses" match, but at 42 years of age, he did not play again when regular cricket resumed after the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Farrimond, Bill 1903 births 1979 deaths England Test cricketers English cricketers Lancashire cricketers People from Westhoughton Cricketers from Greater Manchester Sportspeople from the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton Minor Counties cricketers Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers English cricketers of 1919 to 1945 Sir L. Parkinson's XI cricketers Wicket-keepers Marylebone Cricket Club South African Touring Team cricketers