Born On This Day: 12th November

The early November birthdays have not always been major or well-known Hampshire cricketers, but today we can celebrate two very special all-rounders. Jack Newman (1906-1930) who was born in Portsmouth in 1884 and Mike Taylor (1973-1980) born in Amersham in 1942.

‘Jack’ Newman, was a bowling all-rounder, sometimes, particularly in later years, opening the bowling at medium-pace, before cutting his speed and spinning the ball; he was one of a group of professionals who revived Hampshire’s fortunes on either side of the First World War, and he formed a formidable bowling partnership with Alec Kennedy.

He made his debut with two matches in 1906 and played regularly from 1907-1930, with the exception of 1919, when he was still in India, waiting to be ‘demobbed’. In all first-class cricket, he took 2,054 wickets at 25.02 and is one of only three men in the history of the game to have passed 2,000 first-class wickets, without playing Test cricket. Of the three, Newman was the more accomplished batsman adding 15,364 runs at 21.57 including 10 centuries and 69 half-centuries.

His highest score was 166* v Glamorgan at Southampton in 1921 and in six seasons he passed 1,000 runs; in five of them adding 100+ wickets to complete the season’s ‘double’, while in 1926 there was a match ‘double’ v Gloucestershire, with scores of 66 & 42* plus 8-61 & 6-87. Even those 14 wickets in the match was not his best, for until Kyle Abbott in 2019, he held Hampshire’s match record of 16-88 v Somerset at Weston in 1927, and he took seven or more wickets in an innings on 30 occasions.

In 1909, he took a hat-trick (and 8-43) v the Australians at Southampton. On two occasions at Portsmouth, in 1921 & 1923, he and Kennedy bowled unchanged through both innings in which all 20 wickets fell, and his 177 wickets in 1921 is the second highest total in Hampshire’s history. He moved to South Africa where he coached in Western Province for many years; he died in South Africa on 21 December 1973.

Bowling all-rounder Mike Taylor played for his native Buckinghamshire from 1961, and in the following year made his debut for Nottinghamshire 2^nd XI. He made his first-class debut for them in 1964 and played there until 1972, when he was not offered a new contract, despite playing in 230 matches with a batting average of 18.01 and 522 wickets at 27.88.

He joined Hampshire in 1973 and had an immediate impact, taking 64 first-class wickets at 21.71, plus 507 runs at 24.14, to help his new county to the title. His bowling figures were even better in 1974 when they were foiled by the weather in the search for a second successive Championship, and through the 1970s he proved himself one of the best of Hampshire’s signings from another county.

He scored his first century for the county in 1977, and there was another in 1978, in which year, age 35, he was a member of the Hampshire side that won the Sunday League, as he had been in 1975. He retired at the end of the 1980 season and became Hampshire’s Assistant Secretary and then Marketing Manager.

He took 308 first-class wickets for Hampshire at 24.21, plus 162 limited-overs wickets at 25.70 and an economy rate below four runs per over. He retired from the office in 2002, after 30 years with Hampshire. His twin brother Derek was a wicketkeeper with Surrey and Somerset.

Also: Alister MacLeod (1914-1938)