Billy Bestwick

Billy Bestwick (February 24, 1875 — May 2, 1938) was an English cricketer. He was a right-handed batsman and a right-arm medium-fast bowler who played for Derbyshire. He was born in Heanor.

A true tailender batsman, who never averaged above eight with the bat in a single season for Derbyshire, despite nineteen years of service, Bestwick debuted for the Derbyshire team in 1898, and, with the exception of playing in a single game, a draw for Glamorgan, didn't play for another county team throughout the whole of his career.

Though Bestwick finished with the second-weakest average of his debut season, he proved himself capable with best bowling figures of an expensive but successful 4-163. As cricket entered the 20th century, while Derbyshire were bottom of the 1899 Championship table, the team were looking for an upturn in fortunes. A season average of six would not initially indicate this, however, thanks to the best single batting performance of his career, an innings of 39 against Surrey, Derbyshire bested Leicestershire and the winless Hampshire in the season's championship table.

Derbyshire played host to a team of South Africans in 1901, as the young Test nation played a series of eleven warm-up matches against English county sides prior to a Test series against the English cricket team. However, a publicity boost such as this only served to panic an ever-spiralling Derbyshire team into once again finishing in bottom place in the table. The following year, 1902, was slightly more encouraging for Derbyshire, as, boosted by the appearance of long-time Warwickshire player Thomas Forrester, after three years out of the game, Derbyshire finished in their highest league position since the beginning of Bestwick's career, finishing the season in tenth place.

A slide, albeit temporary, occurred in 1903, as Derbyshire finished twelfth, though the following season saw Derbyshire back up to tenth place, and Bestwick with one more ten-wicket match under his belt, beating out left-hander John Hulme, who had the best single-innings tally of the team with 8/52, but no ten-wicket haul to speak of, though Arnold Warren was to hit two similar hauls and outscore Bestwick with the bat, courtesy of a brace of half-centuries. Thanks to another South African tour, Derbyshire got full-on experience of an international side during the 1904 season, and Bestwick was to hit an average of under 30 once again, as he and Warren spearheaded the Peakites' bowling attack, as the two players missed just a single game of the eighteen Derbyshire played throughout the season between them.

1905 was very little of a rise before a fall, as Derbyshire handed debuts for fifteen players in first-class cricket, ten of whom played fewer than five first-class matches, as Derbyshire finished with a -64% winning percentage, the third-worst of the season. The late 1900s saw more painful times for Derbyshire, and in 1909, Bestwick played in his final County Championship game for nearly ten years, as Derbyshire finished second-bottom of the table.

Despite the will to return throughout the early part of the 1910s, the onset of World War I brought a suspension to the County Championship of four years, and, with the exception of a Minor Counties Championship appearance for Glamorgan in 1914, Bestwick had to wait until 1919 before he re-entered the cricketing scene.

1919 brought a revitalized Derbyshire team, along with a 44-year-old Bestwick, new hope in the Championship, while, led at various times by captains Richard Baggallay, Guy Jackson and John Chapman, the team's three-season captain before the outbreak of the Great War, the eldest of the Hill-Wood brothers, Basil, Derbyshire finished in ninth place.

Bestwick, practically blameless for Derbyshire's bottom-placing season of 1920, after playing just one game for the team, and despite being 45-years-old at this time, he was still turning out regular appearances for a team whose appearances further up the table seemed indicative of a change in fortunes, until 1924 saw Derbyshire winless in 24 County Championship games and rooted to the foot of the table. Bestwick, now fifty, and having outlasted his own son in the first-class game, played seven games in his final season, before retiring from the game.

Bestwick is one of only two bowlers to have hit ten wickets in a single innings for Derbyshire, a feat achieved in June 1921, the other being five-time Test cricketer Tommy Mitchell. His son, Robert Bestwick, later served as a Derbyshire cricketer, father and son playing two games together during the 1922 season.

Bestwick died in 1938 in Standard Hill, Nottingham.

External links

* [http://cricketarchive.com/Archive/Players/27/27871/27871.html Billy Bestwick] at Cricket Archive