Dennett George Image 5 Gloucestershire 1921

Description

Upwey, Dorset born George Dennett was a left-arm spinner for Gloucestershire between 1903 and 1926, and from his figures could be considered one of the best bowlers never to play Test cricket. Owing to the strength of the competition at the time, Dennett was never able to progress even to lower representative levels. He failed even to be nominated as a Wisden Cricketer of the Year, though he would have been a strong candidate to be chosen in 1913. The Wisden Cricketer’s Almanack picked John Wisden that year, 29 years after his death, to commemorate the 50th year of its publication.

Dennett had served in the Boer War with the Somerset Light Infantry, playing cricket for The Army at Pretoria and in football keeping goal for The Army at Cape Town. Discovered in Bristol club cricket, Dennett first played for Gloucestershire in 1903 and in his first season, despite exceptionally helpful pitches due to a very wet summer, Dennett fared only moderately, but in 1904 he rose remarkably rapidly to be considered one of the leading bowlers of the day. Cunning and with brilliant ability to flight the ball, Dennett was deadly when the pitch helped him but could be effective even on firm, hard pitches.

Throughout the period from 1904 to 1914, Dennett never failed to take 100 wickets for Gloucestershire. At times, they were as dependent on him as Kent were on Tich Freeman in the early 1930’s, and he accomplished some amazing feats, the best of which (taking into account the state of the wicket and the batting) was his 15 wickets against Worcestershire at Cheltenham in 1906 and his taking of all 10 Essex wickets for only 40 runs in a single innings at Bristol in the same year. In 1907, Dennett was the leading wicket taker in all first class matches with 201 wickets, whilst in 1913, he took 15 wickets against a very strong Surrey batting side including Jack Hobbs, taking all 15 wickets on the same day. That season at Gloucester, Northamptonshire were bowled out for 12 runs, the lowest total in first class cricket, and Dennett took 8-9, including a hat-trick.

In an extraordinary day’s cricket at Dover in 1912, when thirty wickets fell for 268 runs, Dennett in 20 balls dismissed the last six Kent batsmen without conceding a run.

Joining the military to meet the demand for officers caused by the First World War, Dennett was not released from service until 1920, and never really recovered his pre-war form, being helped to take 100 wickets again in 1921 by some abysmal County batting sides. In 1926, Dennett retired from the game to take up cricket coaching at Cheltenham College, though he did play his final three matches for the County in August that year.

His career of 2,147 first class wickets in 401 matches puts him 23rd on the all-time list of wicket takers, each costing 19.82 a piece. Only Glamorgan’s Don Shepherd took more wickets without being capped. He took 5 wickets in an innings on 211 occasions and 10 wickets in a match on 57 occasions. With the bat he scored 4 half centuries with a highest score of 71, scoring 4,102 runs at an average of 10.33. He also took 298 catches in his first class career.