Wisden Obituary It was almost over for Jack Hobbs. He was 51, and with just a game or two left to complete that illustrious career. Maybe he wouldn't quite score his 200th hundred but the 198th seemed likely as he went off to play Essex at Brentwood. Hadn't Kent just plundered 803 for 4 declared there after all? When it was Surrey's turn, Hobbs, the most decorous of batsmen, met the most undignified of exits. In one over he lost both his cap and his off stump.

The bowler was Hopper Read, playing his first match of the season for Essex. Only the other day he'd been doing his accountancy exams; now here he was, boyish in appearance and not quite orthodox in action, belting up to the wicket and letting fly. He was certainly fast, though sheer speed was not consistently accompanied by control.

It was still a beauty that got through the ageing Hobbs's defence. The batsman, ever generous in defeat, gave Hopper a half-admiring glance before departing. Could there have been a more treasured first Championship wicket? Read went on to take 7 for 35, the best of his brief career. Five of his victims were bowled, Percy Fender and Errol Holmes among them. They, like Hobbs, looked eloquently down the track at their unlikely conqueror.

He played more often the following summer. Against Gloucestershire at Bristol he took his sole hat-trick. Against Yorkshire, hitherto unbeaten, Read took 6 for 11 in six overs, and nine wickets in the match. Yorkshire were all out for 31, and lost by an innings.

By now everyone appeared to be aware of Hopper. He might not have impressed his cricket master at Winchester enough to make the 1st XI, but adolescent diffidence had given way to an engaging confidence. The England selectors gambled by playing him, a few days later, in that 1935 season, in the final Test against South Africa at The Oval. Bob Wyatt tossed him the new ball and told him to bowl straight and, less importantly, fast. Read took four wickets in the first innings, two in the second. But they were expensively earned in a game full of runs and with no real prospect of a result.

It was his best and last summer. There were 97 wickets for him and his selection followed for the MCC tour of Australia and New Zealand. He took 11 wickets from the four unofficial Tests, 44 in all. As a tour arranged to try to obliterate the acrimony that came with Bodyline, it was a genuine success. In the spirit of the gesture, Read kept the ball well up to the batsman.

He was a congenial man who enjoyed his cricket immensely. But there were other considerations, like a living. Back he went to England– and the accountant's office. From that point it was to be club cricket (for Englefield Green), matches for MCC, I. Zingari and the Butterflies.

Holcombe Douglas Read was the third generation of his family to play for Essex, whom he represented only 32 times. He made 54 first-class appearances in all, and had the distinction of turning out for both Surrey– against the Universities – and Essex in the same 1933 season. David Foot

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