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Full name | John James Warr | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Born |
Ealing, Middlesex, England |
16 July 1927|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Died | 9 May 2016 | (aged 88)|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Batting style | Right-hand bat | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bowling style | Right-arm fast-medium | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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John James Warr (16 July 1927 – 9 May 2016) was an English cricketer. A successful county player for Middlesex County Cricket Club, he took part in two Test matches for England. Warr was known for his sense of humour and made many humorous after dinner speeches.
Warr played for Middlesex as a right-arm fast-medium bowler, in 260 first-class matches between 1949 and 1960. He took 703 wickets for the county at an average of 20.75, with personal best figures of 9 for 65 against Kent in August 1956. Playing for both Middlesex and the University of Cambridge, he took 87 wickets in the 1950 season which ranked him 32nd on the list of wicket-takers in the first-class season.
While still studying at Cambridge, Warr was selected for the 1950–51 tour of Australia. He played in two of the five Test matches, with the worst debut bowling performance in Test cricket, taking no wickets but conceding 142 runs, a record which stood until 2009 when Australian Bryce McGain went wicketless while conceding 149 runs against South Africa. He went on to take just one wicket, that of Australia's number seven, Ian Johnson, caught behind. In those two matches, he conceded 281 runs, the worst bowling figures of any Test cricketer in history until the record was surpassed in 1985 by Sri Lanka's Roger Wijesuriya. As of 2016[update] his bowling average remains the worst of any retired England Test player; only Ravi Bopara has a worse average. According to the 1952 Wisden Cricketers' Almanack Warr "tried hard and cheerfully, but he could not be regarded as Test class."