Wensley Bert Image 1 Sussex 1928

Description

Brighton, Sussex born all rounder Bert Wensley was a right-handed batsman described as “determined and hard-hitting” and a right-arm medium-fast bowler who made his County debut for Sussex in 1922, playing for them until 1936. In that time he took 1,135 wickets for 26.42 runs each with his medium pace bowling  and hit 10,735 runs at an average of 20.40. In each of four other years he took 100 wickets and against Middlesex at Lord’s in 1935 he performed the hat-trick. He did the double in 1929 and took over 100 wickets on four other occasions. How economical Bert Wensley’s bowling could be was illustrated by his figures against Derbyshire at Chesterfield in 1928: 32 overs, 20 maidens, 21 runs, 0 wicket.

His best bowling, 9-36, came in New Zealand against Otago in 1929-30, when he played the first of two seasons for Auckland. He scored five centuries for Sussex, with a best of 140 against Glamorgan. His fastest hundred saw him hit 120 in 110 minutes against Derbyshire in 1930. His last first class matches came in India, where he represented The Europeans and Nawanagar, playing his last match in the 1947-48 season.

In 400 first class matches he scored 10,875 runs at 20.48 average including 9 centuries and 42 half centuries, with a highest score of 154. With his bowling he took 1,142 wickets at 26.48 apiece, and took ten wickets in a match ten times, with 56 five wicket hauls. He also caught 265 catches and made one stumping when playing as an emergency wicket-keeper.

Vintage Cricketers was founded in July 2019. There are more photographs of this cricketer in the Vintage Cricketers library, which are due to be loaded in due course. In the meantime, please send a message to us using the contact form at the bottom left of this page and we can arrange to prepare and publish all images of this cricketer if you have a particular interest in him.