After a World Cup in which spin bowlers were very much to the fore, today sees the funeral of one of England's greatest post-war spin bowlers, Fred Titmus. Although he played briefly for Surrey as player-coach, Titmus was synonymous with Middlesex for whom he played around 700 times between 1949 and 1982. His debut came at the age of just 16 while his final appearance was even more unexpected; he popped into the Lord's dressing room as a 50 year-old spectator and ended up being called upon by Mike Brearley to make the most of a turning pitch. He took three wickets, of course.
Fred also played 53 Tests for England spanning twenty years. He made little impact in 1955, on his home ground of Lord's against South Africa, and struggled to nail down a place in a side boasting Laker and Lock. Indeed, he never quite became a first-choice spinner despite often being picked now and again, right up to the 1974-5 Ashes when he was 42. His last Test came at Adelaide where he was wicketless while Derek Underwood claimed eleven victims. However, Titmus took a barely credible 2,830 first-class wickets in his entire career. Remember the fuss when Robert Croft reached the milestone of a mere thousand last year!
Fred was also more than just a bowler. As well as regularly taking at least 100 wickets in a season, he often scored more than a thousand runs, too, and accumulated more than 21,000 in all. Usually batting down the order (apart from a few stints opening for England!) he struck only six centuries - the highest for the MCC against South Australia - but well over a hundred fifties. He famously lost four toes in a boating accident in the Caribbean yet still took 111 wickets the following summer. That puts Freddie Flintoff's drunken fall from a pedalo into perspective!
Titmus was a mean bowler in all forms of cricket but missed out on testing himself in the modern international limited-over era. He appeared in only two ODIs, against New Zealand on the 1974-5 tour Down Under, and only got to bowl in one, taking 3-53. I reckon he'd have relished making his mark in the 50-over game, maybe even Twenty20, as a spinning all-rounder. Move over, Graeme Swann! It's a shame that he died, after a long illness, so soon after his 1950s England team-mate Trevor Bailey, but he will live on in the memories of those who saw him play cricket (and also football!) or worked with him behind the scenes in England and South Africa where he also coached in the 1970s. He was a bit before my time but his career stats speak volumes.
