William Mycroft

William Mycroft (1 February 1841 – 19 June 1894) was an English cricketer who played first class cricket for Derbyshire and MCC between 1873 and 1886. He was a left-arm fast bowler with a great deal of spin and a dangerous yorker that was often believed to be unfair – which may explain why he was not considered for the earliest Test Matches despite being in his prime. He took 863 first class wickets at an average of 12.09 with 87 five-wicket innings and 28 ten-wicket matches in his career. His first ten-wicket match in 1875 against Nottinghamshire became the first of six in only nine games that season. He holds the Derbyshire record for most wickets in a single match, with figures of 17–103 against Hampshire at the Antelope Ground, Southampton in July 1876. This is one of only two times a player has taken seventeen wickets in a match and finished on the losing side – the other, by Walter Mead in 1895 was also against Hampshire. Mycroft had no pretensions as a right-handed tail end batsman: he scored only 791 first class runs at an average of 5.34 and prior to Alf Hall and Father Marriott remained the last significant cricketer who took more wickets than he scored runs.

Mycroft was born in Brimington, Derbyshire, the son of George Mycroft and his first wife Sabra Allen. His father was an ironstone and coal miner who kept the Red Lion public house at Brimington. In 1861 Mycroft himself was an ironstone miner and by 1881 he was running a public house at 10 Tapton Lane, Chesterfield.

Mycroft made his first class debut for Derbyshire in the 1873 season against Lancashire when he took six wickets. The club played two matches in the season and Mycroft topped the bowling count with 10 wickets. In the 1874 season the club doubled the matches to four, and Mycroft doubled his wicket count to 20 taking three five wicket overs to become top bowler again. In the 1875 season, Mycroft hit a phenomenal average of 7.37, and became top bowler again with 73 wickets. He managed at least one five-wicket innings in every match and took eleven altogether in the season with best figures of 9–80. As a result, Mycroft was selected for the North against the South, where he had the amazing figures of fourteen wickets for 38 runs.