Frank Tyson

Photos: Frank Tyson

Frank Tyson : Life and times

Frank Tyson Biography

One of the fastest bowlers to have hurled a ball down the pitch, Frank Tyson was also one of the most erudite.

His claim to fame was the incredible series of 1954-55, when his tremendous pace blew the Australians away at Sydney and Melbourne. The Ashes triumph was acknowledged to be his handiwork as England came back from behind to take the series 3-1. The series saw him bowling like a typhoon with the wind behind him as a man of the stature of Brian Statham was reduced to a supporting act of trundling up the hill and into the wind.

During the New Zealand leg of the tour, Tyson’s pace was measured at Wellington, using metal plates attached to the cricket ball and a sonic device to capture the speed. There was no opportunity of a run up. Tyson bowled while standing at the spot and was measured at 89 mph (142 kmph).

“As fast as man has ever bowled,” wrote EW Swanton about his pace. Standing in the slips, Tom Graveney noted: “I was 50 yards back at slip to Frank and nearer the pavilion gate than the wicket. It was like fielding tracer bullets.” Some pictures showed a 70-metre gap between him and the wicketkeeper as he started his run up. Even Don Bradman, who had faced Harold Larwood during the Bodyline series and had led the young duo of Ray Lindwall and Keith Miller in the late 1940s, called Tyson: “The fastest bowler I have ever seen.”

Even Trueman acknowledged, “On his day Frank Tyson was faster than me.”

Yet, while sending down the bolts of most destructive lightning, Tyson walked back to his bowling mark quoting his favourite lines from William Wordsworth. A university graduate who had studied English literature at Hatfield College in the University of Durham. On tours he would be found engrossed in Geoffrey Chaucer, Bernard Shaw and Adeline Woolf rather than painting the town red during the evenings. Len Hutton is reputed to have once tossed the ball to him with the words, “England hath need of thee”.

Unfortunately, Tyson resembled a meteor blazing across cricketing skies not only in his pace but also longevity. He played just 17 Tests, and by the time England travelled to Australia again, he was a spent force. Perhaps the ‘cabbage patch’ wickets of Northamptonshire were to blame. With the county side boasting spinners like George Tribe, Jack Manning and Micky Allen, pleas for faster wickets fell on deaf ears.

Even then, 78 wickets at 18.56 apiece stands seventh on the list of bowlers with at least 75 scalps in Test cricket. None of the men ahead of him — George Lohmann, Sidney Barnes, Charlie Turner, Bobby Peel, Johnny Briggs and Fred Spofforth — played after the First World War. Tyson was the only one to manage such a rate of wicket taking after the wickets across the world became standardised.

He later settled in Australia and worked as a schoolmaster, later a cricket coach and was soon writing for a number of newspapers. Later, Australian Radio engaged him as a cricket commentator for 36 years and he also performed broadcasting duties for Channel Nine from 1979 to 1986.

Tyson the analyst was unparalleled in his insights and intelligent evaluation of the cricketers of the later eras, and his writings were marked by the stamp of erudition. He penned numerous books on the game, his autobiography A Typhoon called Tyson being one of the most impeccably constructed sporting tales when considered from the literary point of view.

Arunabha Sengupta

Frank Tyson Batting & Fielding Averages

Career

Avg

100s

50s

Test

ODIs

T20s

World Cup

Frank Tyson Bowling Averages

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