Hedley Verity was born in Headingley, Leeds in 1905. He was a left arm spinner who was kept out of the Yorkshire side until the age of 25 by the great Wilfred Rhodes, who played into his fifties. How many players as talented as Verity would wait their turn and lurk in the background as long these days?

When given his chance in 1930 Verity made an immediate impact, topping the English first class averages. He took 150 wickets a season in every year between and including 1931 to 1939, his best return being in 1936 when he too 236 wickets at an average of 13.18.

In 1931, Verity took 10-36 against Warwickshire at Headingley. In 1932 he produced the extraordinary innings analysis of 19.4-16-10-10 (including a hat-trick) against Nottinghamshire, also at Headingley, which remains a world record in a first-class match. In 1933, against Essex at Leyton, he took 17 wickets in one day, one of only three occasions in the history of cricket when this has been done. In 1933, 1935, 1937 and 1939 he had the lowest bowling averages in England. In 378 first class matches he took 1956 wickets at an average of 14.90.

Verity played in 40 Test matches for England between 1931 and 1939 and took 144 wickets at an average of 24.37. He reached 100 wickets in Test cricket in a shorter period than any other English bowler.

In June 1934, he took 15-104 against Australia at Lord's, no fewer than 14 of those wickets coming in the space of a single day. He dismissed Don Bradman on eight occasions in Tests, more than any other bowler, and once opened the batting in a Test - against Australia at the Adelaide Oval on the 1936/37 Ashes tour.

On 1^st September, 1939, the very last day of county cricket before the competition was suspended during World War II, Verity was part of the Yorkshire team playing against Sussex at Hove. He set up a fine win by skittling the opposition for just 33 in their second innings, returning the exceptional analysis of 6-1-9-7. Verity never played first-class cricket again.

The Wisden obituary for Verity pays the great man high praise:

The balance of the run up, the high ease of the left-handed action, the scrupulous length, the pensive variety, all proclaimed the master. He combined nature with art to a degree not equalled by any other English bowler of our time. He received a handsome legacy of skill and, by an application that verged on scientific research, turned it into a fortune. There have been bowlers who have reached greatness without knowing, or, perhaps, caring to know just how or why; but Verity could analyse his own intentions without losing the joy of surprise and describe their effect without losing the company of a listener. He was the ever-learning professor, justly proud yet utterly humble.

In the recorded history of cricket the only bowlers of this class with lower averages are: Alfred Shaw, 2,072 wickets at 11.97 each; Tom Emmett, 1,595 wickets at 13.43 each; George Lohmann, 1,841 wickets at 13.73 each; James Southerton, 1,744 wickets at 14.30 each. It might be argued that during the period 1854 to 1898, covered by the careers of these cricketers, pitches tended to give more help to the bowler than they did during Verity's time. Verity, I know, for one, would not have pressed such a claim in his own favour. He never dwelt on decimals; and, while he enjoyed personal triumph as much as the next man, that which absorbed his deepest interest was the proper issue of a Test match with Australia or of an up-and-down bout with Lancashire; and if, in his country's or county's struggle towards victory, he brought off some recondite plot for the confounding, of Bradman or McCabe or Ernest Tyldesley or Edward Paynter, well, then he was happy beyond computing.

Upon the outbreak of war, Verity joined the Green Howards, and was sent to Northern Ireland, where he played some cricket as part of military XIs. He then spent some time in India, before being sent to become part of the Allied invasion of Sicily in July 1943.

By this time a captain, Verity was wounded during the Eighth Army's first advance on German positions at Catania, in Sicily.

The objective was a ridge with strong points and pillboxes. Behind a creeping barrage Verity led his company forward 700 yards. When the barrage ceased, they went on another 300 yards and neared the ridge, in darkness. As the men advanced, through corn two feet high, tracer-bullets swept into them. Then they wriggled through the corn, Verity encouraging them with "Keep going, keep going." The moon was at their back, and the enemy used mortar-fire, Very lights and fire-bombs, setting the corn alight. The strongest point appeared to be a farm-house, to the left of the ridge; so Verity sent one platoon round to take the farm-house, while the other gave covering fire. The enemy fire increased, and, as they crept forward, Verity was hit in the chest. "Keep going," he said, "and get them out of that farm-house."

When it was decided to withdraw, they last saw Verity lying on the ground, in front of the burning corn, his head supported by his batman. So, in the last grim game, Verity showed, as he was so sure to do, that rare courage which both calculates and inspires.Verity was taken prisoner by the Germans. After being transferred into Italian hands, he died at Caserta on July 31, 1943, some two months after his thirty-eighth birthday, as a result of the wounds he had received in action. He had been reported wounded and missing, and the news of his death came on September 1, exactly four years after he had played his last match for Yorkshire.

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