Ken Biddulph

Kenneth David Biddulph (29 May 1932 – 7 January 2003) played first-class cricket for Somerset between 1955 and 1961, and later appeared in List A cricket matches while playing Minor Counties cricket for Durham between 1962 and 1972.[1] He was born in Chingford, Essex and died at his home in Amberley, Gloucestershire.[2]

Ken Biddulph

Personal information
Full name	Kenneth David Biddulph
Born	29 May 1932 Chingford, London, England
Died	7 January 2003 (aged 70) Amberley, Gloucestershire, England
Batting	Right-handed batsman
Bowling	Right-arm fast medium
Role	Bowler
Domestic team information
Years	Team
1955–1961	Somerset
1962–1972	Durham
First-class debut	13 July 1955 Somerset v Worcestershire
Last First-class	11 August 1961 Somerset v Glamorgan
List A debut	4 May 1964 Durham v Hertfordshire
Last List A	19 July 1972 Durham v Surrey
Career statistics
Competition First-class List A Matches 91 5 Runs scored 468 1 Batting average 6.78 1.00 100s/50s –/– –/– Top score 41 1* Balls bowled 15070 366 Wickets 270 5 Bowling average 27.61 33.80 5 wickets in innings 10 – 10 wickets in match – – Best bowling 6/30 3/20 Catches/stumpings 37/– –/–
Source: CricketArchive, 16 May 2010

Ken Biddulph was a right-arm fast-medium bowler and a tail-end right-handed batsman. Colin McCool, who played alongside Biddulph on the Somerset side of the late 1950s, was not complimentary about Biddulph's abilities as an opening bowler in his ghosted book Cricket is a Game (1960), though Biddulph took a total of 162 wickets over the 1959 and 1960 seasons.

Cricket career

Having played for the Somerset second eleven in 1954, Biddulph made his first-class debut in two matches during the 1955 season, taking three wickets in his first match against Worcestershire.[3] There were seven first-class matches in 1956 and three in 1957. In the match against Derbyshire at Derby in 1956, he took five wickets for 46 runs in Derbyshire's first innings, finishing the innings off with a spell of five for 8 with the second new ball.[4][5]

Biddulph gained a more regular place in the first team in 1958 as the deputy for regular fast-medium bowler Bryan Lobb, playing in almost half the matches as Somerset finished third in the County Championship, the county's highest position since 1892. In his first match of the season, against Kent at Dartford, he took six second-innings wickets for 64 runs, his best career performance to that date.[6] He improved that performance later in the season in the home match against Worcestershire at Taunton, when he and Bill Alley took all the wickets as Worcestershire were dismissed for 68; Biddulph's share was six for 34.[7]

Lobb retired from regular first-class cricket at the end of the 1958 season to become a teacher, and Biddulph stepped up in 1959 to be Somerset's regular opening bowler, usually forming a not-much-more-than-medium-paced opening attack with Alley or Ken Palmer. He took 79 wickets at an average of 24.35 and was awarded his county cap. He took five or more wickets in an innings four times and improved his own personal best with six for 30 in the match against the Combined Services at Taunton, and these were the best figures of his entire career.[8] His figures for the 1960 season were similar: 83 wickets at an average of 27.28.[9]

In its review of Somerset's 1960 season, Wisden Cricketers' Almanack wrote that lack of a match winning fast bowler was the main cause for the team's poor performance: "Biddulph, Palmer, and Alley bowled accurately enough, but their medium-fast deliveries lacked penetrative power," it wrote.[10] In the 1961 season, Palmer's bowling became much more successful, but Biddulph, by contrast, lost form. He dropped out of the first team halfway through the season and at the end the season, he was not re-engaged. In an article after Biddulph's death, the cricket author Stephen Chalke wrote: "[His] moment on the stage had passed... Ken Biddulph quickly realized when his contract was not renewed in 1961. 'The sports shop in Taunton had a cut-out of me in the window, bowling. And the next time I walked past, it had gone.'"[11]

After Somerset

Biddulph went into League cricket on leaving Somerset and was a regular in Durham's Minor Counties side from 1962 until 1969, reappearing in four matches during 1972. In this period, he played five List A matches for Durham in the Gillette Cup competition.

Biddulph joined the staff at Wycliffe College in Stonehouse, Gloucestershire as the Cricket and Squash professional in 1985. He retired at the age of 60 in 1992,[12] but he was active in cricket coaching in the West Country almost up to his death.[13]

References

1. "Ken Biddulph". www.cricketarchive.com. Retrieved 25 April 2010.
2. "Former Somerset bowler Ken Biddulph has died". www.cricinfo.com. 10 January 2003. Retrieved 26 April 2010.
3. "Scorecard: Somerset v Worcestershire". www.cricketarchive.com. 13 July 1955. Retrieved 16 May 2010.
4. "Scorecard: Derbyshire v Somerset". www.cricketarchive.com. 30 June 1956. Retrieved 16 May 2010.
5. "Derbyshire in 1956". Wisden Cricketers' Almanack (1957 ed.). Wisden. p. 319.
6. "Scorecard: Kent v Somerset". www.cricketarchive.com. 10 May 1958. Retrieved 16 May 2010.
7. "Scorecard: Somerset v Worcestershire". www.cricketarchive.com. 21 June 1958. Retrieved 16 May 2010.
8. "Scorecard: Somerset v Combined Services". www.cricketarchive.com. 8 July 1959. Retrieved 16 May 2010.
9. "First-class Bowling in Each Season by Ken Biddulph". www.cricketarchive.com. Retrieved 16 May 2010.
10. "Somerset in 1960". Wisden Cricketers' Almanack (1961 ed.). Wisden. p. 534.
11. Stephen Chalke. "When the Fat Lady Sings". www.cricinfo.com. Retrieved 26 April 2010.
12. Wycliffe Star, July 1992
13. "Obituaries". Wisden Cricketers' Almanack (2004 ed.). Wisden. p. 1535.