You are here:

Arthur Booth

The Club

Interact

Discuss this story in the White Rose Forum

Name:
Arthur Booth

Born:
November 3, 1902, Featherstone, Yorkshire. Died: August 17, 1974 (Aged 71)

Role:
Right-hand bat, Slow left-arm orthodox

County Debut:
1931-47

County Cap:
1946. YCCC Cap No. 80.

STATISTICS

BATTING AND FIELDING AVERAGES

	Mat	Inns	NO	Runs	HS	Ave	100	50	Ct	St
First-class	38	40	16	137	29	5.70	0	0	12	0

BOWLING AVERAGES

	Mat	Balls	Runs	Wkts	BBI	Ave	Econ	SR	5w	10
First-class	38	7242	1931	131	6/21	14.74	1.59	55.2	7	1

PROFILE

A diminutive slow-left-armer who possessed great guile, Arthur Booth had one exceptional season for Yorkshire when at 43 he headed the national averages with 111 wickets at 11.61, helping Yorkshire to the 1946 County Championship. His best returns were 6-21 against Warwickshire and 6-33 against India.

He vied with Hedley Verity and Horace Fisher for a place in the Yorkshire side when the great Wilfred Rhodes finished in 1930. He missed out and not until 1946, at 43, when first-class cricket started again after the war, did he realise his life-time ambition to be Yorkshire's unchallenged No. 1 spinner.

Skipper Brian Sellers, much to the bowler's annoyance, christened him `Grandad'.

When Yorkshire went to Glamorgan for the first game of the 1947 season Booth went down with rheumatic fever and did not play for Yorkshire again. He died in hospital at Rochdale, August 17, 1974. He had lived for many years at Littleborough on the Yorkshire-Lancashire border and had shared a cricket interest between the two counties as a professional in the leagues and later as a coach at the Yorkshire nets and a committee man with Lancashire.