A History of Cricket at King Edward's School, BIrmingham

73 achieved by the team in these years. GW Carr had 46 wickets in 1981. Stephen Heath had three outstanding seasons from 1983 to 1985, taking 58, 57 and 63 wickets to give him a career total of 178 wickets, more than anyone except Manton’s 365: Manton should clearly be put in a category of his own because of the very different conditions prevailing in the nineteenth century (including often getting a second innings in which to bowl against weak opposition), but this was an exceptional performance by Heath. Willetts took 45 wickets in 1985 to add to the 889 runs he scored that season. Though 1989 was not a year of more than ordinary success (six matches being won and six lost by a side captained by Jonathan Pritchard), it had an old-fashioned feel about it, because it was dominated by two bowlers, Michael Dean who took 52 wickets and Matthew Goodall who took 53. Not since DH Benson and OS Wheatley in 1952 and RI Nuttall and DB Taylor in 1965 had two bowlers dominated in this way by each taking over fifty wickets. Goodall’s 8 for 47 against Solihull in 1989 is the best innings analysis of the last fifty years. Goodall took 99 wickets between 1987 and 1989, and Dean, with one extra year in 1990, took 134. In the 1990s Linehan, Wagh and Singh all took wickets as well as scoring runs. Wagh took 127 wickets in his School career and Linehan 110 wickets; Singh did not bowl as often but took 47 wickets in 1993. Several outstanding players from KES have gone on to success at a higher level. John Claughton gained four Blues for Oxford between 1976 and 1979, captaining the side in 1979. He made 15 appearances for Warwickshire between 1978 and 1980 before devoting himself to his teaching career – returning to KES as Chief Master in 2006. Anurag Singh went on to Cambridge, winning Blues in 1996, 1997 and 1998, and Mark Wagh gained Blues for Oxford in the same three years. In 1997 they each captained their respective universities: this is only the third occasion on which the same school has provided both captains in the same year. It first happened back in 1905, when both captains were from Harrow; of greater interest, perhaps, is the other, more recent occasion in 1989, when both captains came from Manchester Grammar School: Mark Crawley captained Oxford and Michael Atherton (later to captain England in 54 Test matches) was captain of Cambridge. Singh was appointed as captain of Cambridge for a second year in 1998, and went on to spend several years playing first-class cricket, first for Warwickshire, then Worcestershire, and finally Nottinghamshire, without being able to secure a regular place. Between 1995 and 2006 he scored 5,437 runs at an average of 32.17, with a highest score of 187 for Worcestershire against Gloucestershire at Bristol in 2002. Mark Wagh had a rather more successful first- class career, moving to Nottinghamshire after a few years with Warwickshire and becoming a regular team member for several years. He wrote a diary of the 2008 season, entitled Pavilion to Crease … and Back . He retired in 2011, having scored 12,455 runs in first-class cricket, with 31 centuries and an average of 38.80. He scored 315 for Warwickshire against Middlesex at Lord’s in 2001 – only Jack Hobbs and Graham Gooch have made higher scores at Lord’s. These are not the only players to gain Blues or make other appearances in first-class cricket. Neil Martin gained a Blue at Oxford in 1994, and Stephen Heath at Cambridge in 1988. Tom Claughton followed his father in being awarded an Oxford Blue in 2015, and Aninrudh Singh followed his brother in gaining Blues for Cambridge in 2003, 2004 and 2005. Vikram Banerjee also gained three Blues for Cambridge in 2004, 2005 and 2006, going on to