UK Edition
John Warr, cricketer – obituary
John Warr, who has died aged 88, was an extremely useful fast-medium bowler for Middlesex between 1949 and 1960; he was also celebrated, both within the game and in the City, as one of the most amusing figures of his time.
For nearly 35 years, however, his wit and humour were required to support the distinction of possessing the worst bowling average – 281.00 – in the history of Test cricket.
Eyebrows were raised in 1950 when Warr, a Cambridge undergraduate, was selected for the forthcoming tour of Australia. The more experienced, if less middle-class, Les Jackson of Derbyshire and Derek Shackleton of Hampshire stood well above him in the averages that year, while Lancashire’s Brian Statham already seemed a more likely prospect. (In fact Statham would be sent out to Australia halfway through the tour.)
Nevertheless, Warr had his moments Down Under. Against an Australian XI he picked up the prize scalps of Neil Harvey and Keith Miller, and soon afterwards he returned the creditable figures of four for 67 and two for 25 against a powerful New South Wales side. His fielding, on the other hand, won few plaudits.
Selected for the third Test at Sydney, Warr had no luck at all. With the England attack reduced to three regular bowlers by injuries , he was obliged, along with Alec Bedser and Freddy Brown, to toil for more than two days in intense heat on a perfect batting wicket against such outstanding batsmen as Lindsay Hassett, Neil Harvey and Keith Miller. England’s trio of bowlers did well to restrict Australia to a total of 426, of which Miller contributed an uncharacteristically cautious 145 not out.
Warr finished with figures of none for 142 from 36 eight-ball overs. Back in England, friends sent him a telegram: “Hymns Ancient and Modern 254”. Warr looked it up and discovered “Art thou weary, art thou languid,/ Art thou sore distressed?”
Yet Freddy Brown, the England captain, paid heartfelt tribute to his efforts in that Test. Warr, he declared, had been a “tremendous trier” who remained “extremely cheerful” in adversity.
In the next match, against Tasmania, Warr took four for 47 and three for 39. During the fourth Test at Adelaide, however, he again had to plug away on a thankless wicket, finishing with analyses of nought for 63 and one for 76. His sole victim was Ian Johnson, caught behind by Godfrey Evans.
That, as it proved, was the end of Warr’s Test career. When, decades later, he was stopped for speeding on the motorway and asked by a cricket-loving policeman how fast he thought he had been driving, he ventured: “Marginally faster than I used to bowl.”
Yet several England bowlers have returned from Down Under with worse records than Warr’s. In all first-class matches on that tour of Australia and New Zealand he took 25 wickets at 36.60 apiece. Nor should it be forgotten, in this context, that Shane Warne, after his first two Tests, had a bowling average of 228.00.
Eventually, in 1985, a Sri Lankan left-arm spinner called Roger Wijesuriya ended his four-match Test career with figures of one for 294, thus relieving Warr of his invidious record.
Warr, though, had always appeared entirely unfazed by his statistical affliction. “You know, Fred,” he told Trueman, “you and I have 308 Test wickets between us.”
John James Warr was born in Ealing on July 16 1927, the youngest of three children. His brother became a good club cricketer for Ealing, and his sister Marion married Bill Slater, the Wolves and England footballer. At Ealing County Grammar School John Warr was head boy and captain of cricket. Afterwards, from 1945 to 1948, he did his National Service in the Royal Navy, becoming a petty officer in the Fleet Air Arm.
By the time he went up to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in 1948, he had played for the Arabs, run by E W Swanton, who recommended him to the Light Blues’ captain, Doug Insole. Warr’s bowling action was never a thing of beauty; his enthusiasm, however, was instantly apparent.
“J J” made his first-class debut for Cambridge University against Yorkshire in May 1949. In the next game Warr showed his potential by taking six for 35 against a strong Lancashire side.
Later that summer, after making an important contribution to Cambridge’s victory over Oxford at Lord’s, Warr played for Middlesex. In the last game of the season, he helped them to tie the championship with Yorkshire with an analysis of five for 36 against Derbyshire.
In four seasons (1949-52) and 42 matches for Cambridge he took a total of 169 wickets (including 20 against Oxford) at 21.07 each.
In 1951, after his winter in Australia, Warr captained the Light Blues. His side included a future bishop (David Sheppard), a future High Court Judge (Oliver Popplewell) and two fledgling CBEs (Peter May and Subba Row). Oxford won the Varsity match.
Most creditably, in view of his dedication to cricket, Warr achieved a second-class degree in History.
At Middlesex, from 1952, he formed a successful bowling partnership with Alan Moss, which helped make the county a formidable, if never quite a dominating, side throughout most of the 1950s. Warr captained the team from 1958 to 1960, and if the first two of those seasons proved disappointing (Middlesex came tenth in both years) they finished third in 1960.
Warr’s affability made him a popular choice for various tours overseas – with MCC to Canada in 1951, and to East Africa in 1957-58; with E W Swanton to the West Indies in 1956; and with the Duke of Norfolk to Jamaica in 1957.
Between 1949 and 1960 he played in 344 first-class matches, taking 956 wickets at 22.79 apiece. He twice surpassed a hundred wickets in a season – in 1956 (116 @ 18.17) and in 1959 (109 @ 16.49). His best performance was nine for 65 for Middlesex v Kent in 1956. As a batsman he mustered 3,838 runs (including three fifties) at an average of 11.45.
From 1962 to 1972 Warr wrote about cricket for The Sunday Telegraph. His main career, however, was as a discount broker in the City. The Union Discount Company, for which he worked from 1952, proved generous in granting him time off to play for Middlesex; Warr, for his part, was adept at drumming up business. In 1973 he moved to Clive Discount, retiring as deputy chairman in 1987.
Warr’s ability to set the table on a roar meant that he was much in demand as an after-dinner speaker. He never missed an opportunity for a quip. “Bride or groom?” he was asked at Bill Edrich’s fourth wedding. “Season ticket,” he returned.
In 1970 Warr saw two men fleeing down an alley beside his office, carrying cash boxes which, it later transpired, contained £2,000. When he gave chase, a third man came up behind, and fired at him. The shot missed; another of the crooks, though, in an attempt to cosh Warr on the head, struck him on the wrist.
Subsequently Warr was awarded the Binney Memorial Prize for bravery, named after a Captain Binney, RN, who had been killed in 1944 while trying to foil a smash-and-grab raid.
Another unexpected honour came Warr’s way in 1974, when Australia’s Board of Control, the ruling body of cricket Down Under, asked him to be their representative in England. Warr expressed amazement, since he had not been to Australia since 1950-51 – and “the only quality I had on that tour which they might have admired was that I never caught any of them out”. In fact, the Australians had been captivated by a brilliant speech he had given at a cricket writers’ dinner. Warr carried out this commission until 1987.
He was a member of the organising committee of the World Cup from its triumphant inception in 1975, and in 1979 served on the ICC delegation which visited South Africa to discuss that country’s exclusion from Test cricket on account of its government’s apartheid policies.
Elected president of MCC in 1987, Warr seemed inclined to appeasement in dealing with South Africa, exploring the suggestion that a player deemed unacceptable by the host country of a tour should not be considered for selection.
Warr also had to deal with the solicitation of E W Swanton, who wanted to be elected to MCC’s committee. “My dear Jim,” Warr told him, “that is rather like asking Satan to put forward the Pope to be Chief Rabbi.”
Warr was devoted to the Turf, and served as a steward at Windsor and Goodwood. A member of the Jockey Club from 1977, he was chairman of the Racecourse Association from 1989 to 1993.
He was a great friend of Denis Compton’s, whom he once described as the only player to call his partner for a single and wish him luck at the same time. In Compton’s last years Warr became one of the few people able to lift him out of his melancholy. They would meet at Denham Golf Club, and talk over old times without noticeable recourse to sobriety. Warr was a highly competitive golfer, whether at Denham, Temple or the Berkshire.
He was president of Berkshire County Cricket Club in 1990. A prominent member of the Saints and Sinners charitable organisation, of which he served as chairman in 1991-92, he especially enjoyed the whitebait dinners organised by the club at the Trafalgar inn, Greenwich. He also loved going to the opera.
John Warr married, in 1957, Valerie Powell (née Peter), who predeceased him; they had two daughters.
John Warr, born July 16 1927, died May 9 2016