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Robert "Bob" Appleyard MBE (27 June 1924 – 17 March 2015) was a Yorkshire and England cricketer. He was one of the best English bowlers of the 1950s, a decade which saw England develop its strongest bowling attack of the twentieth century. Able to bowl fast-medium swingers or seamers and off-spinners with almost exactly the same action, Appleyard's career was almost destroyed by injury and illness after his first full season in 1951. In his limited Test career, he took a wicket every fifty-one balls, and in first class cricket his 708 wickets cost only 15.48 runs each.〔 ==Career== As a young cricketer Appleyard spent eleven months in hospital after being diagnosed with advanced tuberculosis. Whilst in hospital, Appleyard kept his fingers strong by squeezing a cricket ball under the bed covers. He had to learn to walk again and had the upper half of his left lung removed. After success in local cricket within Yorkshire, Appleyard was engaged by the county in 1950 at the age of 26 and played three games for them, taking six wickets in two County Championship games against Surrey and Gloucestershire. With Alec Coxon departing for league cricket and Brian Close on military service, it was thought that Yorkshire would have an ordinary season in 1951, yet Appleyard's bowling, which saw him take the first 200-wicket aggregate for four years, ensured they remained near the top of the table. (In 2001, on the death of Alf Gover, Appleyard became the sole survivor among the twenty-eight bowlers who have taken 200 wickets or more in an English cricket season, the last case of which was Tony Lock in 1957.) His wickets in the 1951 season cost an average of 14 a piece.〔 Appleyard was able to bowl both as a paceman and as a spinner with no apparent changes of action, so that he could go through an innings with little rest and possess sting under all conditions of weather and wicket. He was chosen as a Wisden Cricketer of the Year but did not gain representative honours. After one match in 1952, however, a chronic illness kept Appleyard off the field for the rest of that year and all of 1953. Even at the beginning of 1954, he was not expected to play again, but a surprising recovery saw him second in the averages after Brian Statham and bowling with skill on a perfect pitch at Trent Bridge in his first Test. In the first innings, he took 5 wickets.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=2nd Test: England v Pakistan at Nottingham, Jul 1–5, 1954 )〕 In the words of ''Wisden'': ("His mixture of in-swingers, off-spinners and leg-cutters; his variations of flight and pace, bore the make of a highly-skilled craftsman" ). As a consequence, Appleyard was chosen for the Ashes tour ahead of Jim Laker, and under Hutton's captaincy. He again bowled with skill on unusually erratic Australian wickets, most notably in the extreme heat at Adelaide in the Fourth Test, which clinched the Ashes. Appleyard enjoyed the more English conditions as the tour moved on to New Zealand, and played a leading role the dismissal of New Zealand at Wellington in March for the lowest score in the history of Test cricket. On a rain-affected pitch, he took 4 for 7, as New Zealand were rolled for 26. In 1955, by then almost exclusively bowling spinners, Appleyard was almost unplayable on the wet wickets early in the summer, but a knee injury wiped out almost all his cricket after the middle of June. He recovered his form well enough in 1956, however, to regain his Test place for the first match as Trent Bridge but did not bowl well enough to challenge Jim Laker for the rest of the summer. Then, in 1957, Appleyard declined so badly that Yorkshire often left him out of their team: he seemed unable to show his old versatility when asked to open again with Trueman and was not gaining as much penetration on rain-affected surfaces. Appleyard's decline continued in 1958, and Yorkshire dropped him for good in early June, and he never did well enough for the second eleven for them to consider retaining him. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Bob Appleyard」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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