Thomas Jayes

Thomas Jayes (17 April 1877 – 16 April 1913) was an English first-class cricketer who played for Leicestershire between 1903 and 1911. He was born and died at Ratby, Leicestershire. Jayes was a right-arm fast bowler and a hard-hitting lower middle-order right-handed batsman; unusually for fast bowlers of the era when he played, he was also rated as a good fielder.

Jayes made his debut for Leicestershire in a few games in 1903, but made little impression. He returned to the Leicestershire team in 1905 when John King was injured and in his second game he took 10 Essex wickets for 134 runs in an innings victory, including seven for 84 in the second innings. He retained his place when King returned and in 22 matches in 1905 took 102 wickets at an average of 23.79, a material part of Leicestershire's most successful season since they achieved first-class status in 1895. Against Derbyshire he took nine wickets for 78 runs in the Derbyshire second innings: five clean bowled, two lbw, two caught and bowled and he caught the tenth batsman off the bowling of Sam Coe. In the same match, he made his highest score of the season with the bat, with 74; his batting was slower to develop, but he scored 525 runs in 1905 at an average of 21.00 and he also took 29 catches. Towards the end of the season, he was picked for "An Eleven of England" to play the Australian touring team under the captaincy of the 57-year-old W. G. Grace; under Grace's individual captaincy, he bowled only three overs, took no wickets and made just 10 runs in two innings.

Jayes' batting and bowling returns in 1906 were similar to those of the previous season, though Leicestershire were a poor team, disunited on the field and off it, according to the report in the 1907 Wisden Cricketers' Almanack. Jayes and other bowlers, Wisden said, were "expensive": his 104 wickets in the season came at an average of 27.07. In terms of aggregate, this was his best season for batting, with 708 runs at an average of 19.13. The runs included his only first-class century, an innings of exactly 100 made in 105 minutes as part of a seventh-wicket stand of 158 with A. E. Knight in the game against Warwickshire at Edgbaston. Three weeks later he was selected for the Players team in the Gentlemen v Players match at The Oval, in a season without Test cricket one of the most important fixtures of the season.