Walter Lees
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| Batting style | Right-hand bat | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Bowling style | Right-arm medium-fast | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Walter Scott Lees (25 December 1875, Sowerby Bridge, Yorkshire – 10 September 1924, West Hartlepool, County Durham) was a Surrey and England cricketer who played in 5 Tests against South Africa in 1906. On his debut, he took five wickets in the first innings in Johannesburg.
He was born on Christmas Day, 25 December 1875 in Yorkshire. He learned his cricket in London and began his career with Surrey in 1896, but was regarded as merely promising until the following year when he took a regular place from the out-of-form William Lockwood and took 75 wickets despite being overshadowed by Tom Richardson. On two occasions his bowling was nonetheless a vital factor in Surrey winning or turning around matches.
The following few years, however, were very patchy and Lees struggled to maintain his place in the side against competition from the rejuvenated Lockwood and Bill Brockwell. He lost his place very early in 1898 and did not become a regular again until 1900, when performances like eight for 31 against Hampshire and nine wickets in a superb win over Lancashire showed he had the potential to be a major force. However, Lees was again disappointing in 1901 and almost completely lost his place in 1902 despite Surrey being dreadfully short of bowlers.
However, in the following year a performance of thirteen wickets for 75 runs against Cambridge University saw Lees finally establish himself as an integral part of the Surrey eleven. Although he only twice took five wickets in a County Championship innings, Lees not only took 102 wickets but developed his hard hitting sufficiently to be often valuable as a batsman for a team weakened immensely by the loss of Abel and Brockwell. 1904 saw Lees raised except on sticky wickets to the status of Surrey's chief bowler by the dropping out of Lockwood and Richardson, but by the standards of the day he was very expensive in most matches.
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