Book Review – Harold Gimblett: Tormented Genius of Cricket
David Foot
***** Definitely a 5 star book.
Probably the best ever cricket biography.
Harold Gimblett’s story is a tragic one. From his remarkable debut in first-class cricket at the age of 21 until his suicide in 1978, his life swung between extrovert attacking batting on the field of play to bouts of debilitating depression at other times.
Born in Bicknoller in 1914 Gimblett did not really shine in a trial with Somerset, and in May 1935 the county was ready to let him go when they unexpectedly found themselves a man short against Essex, in a match at the Frome showground. Hitching a ride on a lorry to Bridgwater, he eventually arrived at the ground. Somerset were in trouble at 107 for 6, when in Boy’s Own fashion Gimblett came to the wicket and hit a century in 63 minutes. This brought him the Lawrence Trophy for the fastest century of the season.
His career spanned either side of the war years, and he showed his consistency as a batsman by scoring over a thousand runs a season. An excellent cutter and driver, he also had the eye for the hook shot, and in Somerset teams thin on batting talent, he played as an opener, delighting the crowd as well as holding up the team.
On his test debut against India in 1936 he made 67 not out but he was only to play two further tests, although he was selected for the cancelled 1939 tour of India. So his career at the highest level is studded with the “what ifs” that come with tragedy. What if he was picked against Australia? What if he played for a more fashionable county? What if he was not so consumed by self- doubt? It’s the latter that David Foot picks up on so well, and he describes how Gimblett, on hearing he has been selected for England, prays for an injury so that he will avoid the fate of not meeting the expectations placed on his shoulders.
Drawing on interviews with Gimblett, tape-recorded not long before his death, Foot also gives us a sense of the prickliness of Gimblett, and how keenly he felt both the real and imagined slights at the hands of the Somerset committee. At one point when he returned after a period of illness to watch the team play, he was asked to leave the ground by the committee.
His departure from Somerset in 1954 was as dramatic as his entry. Earlier in the year he had been in hospital for electric shock treatment, and in his first match of the season against Nottinghamshire he had been reprimanded for his dressing room behaviour. Against Yorkshire he didn’t want to play and after a duck in the first innings, he was eventually cajoled into going in at number 5 where he was lbw to Trueman.
“I was finished,” he admitted. “I knew I shouldn’t have played. I packed my bags and went home.”
It’s all of this that Foot captures so well in his biography, where he conveys both the anguish and the glory, and we are left with the sense of what Gimblett was like as a man and the shape of the life.
Another great David Foot cricket book is his biography of Wally Hammond
