Roly Jenkins
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| Full name | Roland Oliver Jenkins | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born |
24 November 1918 Rainbow Hill, Worcester, England |
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| Died | 22 July 1995 (aged 76) Worcester, England |
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| Batting style | Right-hand bat | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Bowling style | Legbreak googly | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Roly Jenkins (sometimes spelt Roley) (24 November 1918 – 22 July 1995) was an English cricketer, almost exclusively for Worcestershire as a leg spinner in the period immediately after World War II. Along with Doug Wright and Eric Hollies, Jenkins was a star of the last generation of English leg-spinners before a more defensive mindset, followed by the advent of one-day cricket, all but killed off home grown wrist spinners.
Cricket writer, Colin Bateman, noted, "true to the leg-spinner's image, Roly Jenkins was one of the game's great characters and entertainers whose performances ebbed and flowed with how the mood took him. in an era when wrist-spinners flourished, Roly was one of the bigger spinners of the ball, if not always the most accurate".
Roland Oliver Jenkins was born in Rainbow Hill, Worcester in 1918. He first played for Worcestershire as a teenager in 1938, and established himself as a regular member of the team almost immediately. He was carefully nursed in his first three seasons – separated by six years with no county matches due to World War II – but some of his performances already showed he was potentially a leg-spinner of more than ordinary ability. Although he had not reached a half century before the war, 1947 saw him come rapidly to the front as a gutsy middle-order batsman with a full range of leg-side strokes, and the following year he continued this advance as a batsman and, as a bowler, improved so much that he was chosen for the tour to South Africa.
Although he did not do much in the Tests, Jenkins' vicious spin was deadly against slower-footed batsmen on hard South African pitches. Initially an orthodox leg break bowler, around this time Jenkins shifted to a grip akin to a seam bowler, which allowed him such a firm and close grip on the ball. This spin was so strong that it compensated for his lack of a top-spinner, and the fact that his googly was extremely easy to pick. Although he had neither the quick pace of Wright, or the artfulness of Hollies, Jenkins' spin and flight were so pronounced he surpassed both in the dry summer of 1949. Despite not playing a Test match, he took more wickets that season than any other bowler, and claimed a hat-trick in each innings against Surrey. This did not affect his batting: indeed, Jenkins reach 1,000 runs for the third successive year and was named one of the Cricketers of the Year by Wisden.
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