Brian Sellers

Arthur Brian Sellers, born March 5, 1907, at Keighley, Yorkshire and died February 20, 1981, at Bingley, also in Yorkshire, was a cricketer who played for Yorkshire and later became a prominent administrator in the county club.

Career

Brian Sellers was a middle-order right-handed batsman of modest attainments and a splendid close fieldsman. But his cricketing significance relates almost entirely to his captaincy of the highly successful Yorkshire side both before and after the Second World War. He played regularly for Yorkshire in 1932, and often captained the side in his first season in the absence of the regular captain, Frank Greenwood. When Greenwood resigned at the end of that season, Sellers was appointed captain for 1933, and then held the post until 1948, when he retired.

During Sellers' 10 seasons of captaincy, Yorkshire won the County Championship six times, making him one of the most successful county captains of all time, rivalled perhaps only by Lord Hawke and Stuart Surridge. Intensely competitive, Sellers led by example in the field, where he always fielded close to the bat, and though his batting figures were modest – he hit 1,000 runs in a season only three times, despite regularly playing more than 30 matches a season, and made only four centuries in his career – he tended to make runs when they were needed. His Yorkshire teams included many England players, including Herbert Sutcliffe, Leonard Hutton, Hedley Verity, Bill Bowes, and Maurice Leyland.

After leading Yorkshire to the Championship title for three consecutive years to 1939, Sellers was named as a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in the 1940 edition of the almanack.

Both during his playing career and afterwards, Sellers was an England Test team selector, and in retirement he served on Yorkshire committees, taking a prominent and influential role in many of the controversies that surrounded the county club in the 1970s.