Box Case
Encyclopedia
Cecil Charles Cole Case, known as Box Case, born at Frome
, Somerset
on 7 September 1895 and died at Keyford, Frome, Somerset on 11 November 1969, played first-class
cricket
for Somerset
as an amateur batsman between 1925 and 1935.
Case was a right-handed middle-order batsman whose batting technique, in one account, was "limited and effective". He also kept wicket very occasionally in the period at the end of the 1920s and into the 1930s when regular Somerset wicketkeeper Wally Luckes
was ill. Although the Somerset side in Case's time often contained amateur players who appeared in relatively few matches, Case was virtually a regular, appearing in 255 matches for the county in 11 seasons, plus two for the Gentlemen in Gentlemen v Players
games in 1931 and 1934.
. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant
in the Third Battalion of the Dorsetshire Regiment and served with the regiment throughout the First World War. In October 1918, the London Gazette
reported he had been promoted to captain the previous December, but this notice was rescinded five days later. By 1919, he was on the reserve officer list. He left the army on 1 April 1920.
in 1923. In 1925, he began playing fairly regularly for Somerset, batting mostly in the middle order but sometimes opening the innings. It was as an opener that he made his first first-class 50, an innings of 59 in a first-wicket partnership of 117 with his captain John Daniell
in the match against Essex
at Taunton. In the season as a whole, in 15 first-class matches he scored 349 runs at an average
of 13.96. There was a small improvement on these figures in 1926, when Case played in 20 matches and scored 471 runs at an average of 15.70, although he did not reach 50 in any innings.
Case's big advance as a cricketer came in 1927. Wisden
noted that he "made great strides as a batsman, almost doubling his runs and increasing his average by nearly ten". His final figures for the season were 920 runs at 23.58. These included his first two centuries. The higher of these was 122 in the match against Gloucestershire
at Taunton, when he put on 235 for the fifth wicket with Jack White
, who also made a debut century. The stand was a record for the fifth wicket for Somerset and remained so for 78 years until beaten by the 320 that John Francis
and Ian Blackwell
put on against a Durham university side in 2005. Later in the season, Case made an unbeaten 107 in the match against Sussex
at Taunton; he made 44 not out
in the first innings batting at No 8, and was promoted to No 4 for the second innings when he again carried his bat.
Wisden's Somerset notes for the 1927 season give a view of Case's batting style. "Cramped in style, and with scarcely any free use of wrists or shoulders, Case yet batted far better than could be seen from the ring," it said. "His defence was very difficult to get through and, with little uplift of his bat, he put unexpected power into his drives and pulls." A more recent account is more forthright: "The kindest adjective to evoke his style was probably ugly," wrote David Foot in a 1986 history of Somerset cricket. "He didn't go in for back lifts and expansive sweeps of the blade; he didn't really go in for attacking shots at all. There was no athleticism in his movement." Foot recounts a story from a match against Nottinghamshire
in which Bill Voce
was experimenting with leg theory
bowling: "(Case) missed the ball, fell in a ludicrous heap and then picked up a stump instead of the bat."
Case's 1927 record set the pattern for the next seven seasons. He missed a few matches in 1928, and his aggregate of runs fell to 685, but the average improved to 24.46; in 1929, he made 1000 runs in a season for the first time with 1035 runs, though the average fell back slightly to 21.56 and the highest score was only 77. There was a third century in 1930 – 108 against Middlesex
at Taunton – and he missed the 1000 runs in the season by only 15. In 1931, there were 1034 runs, and in the first three matches of the season, Case increased his highest first-class score twice. First, in the match against Hampshire
at Taunton, he hit 131 with 12 fours. Then, against Surrey
at The Oval
, he came in at No 6 after four Somerset wickets had fallen for 35 runs, all of them to Edward Sheffield, and made 155 in 210 minutes.
on his home ground at Frome, when his 112 enabled Somerset to recover from 46 for five to reach 295 in the second innings, though the match was still lost. But he more than doubled his aggregate in the following season, 1933, reaching 1146 runs at an average of 26.65, and this was his best total of runs for a single season. Case's methods did not meet with Wisden's approval in one of his two centuries in the 1933 season: his innings of 132 against Hampshire at Bath took 260 minutes and Case was accused of "displaying exaggerated care" in a match where the first day (of three) had been lost to rain and which ended without even two innings being completed. His second century of the summer was an innings of 111 in the match against Middlesex at Weston-super-Mare
, when he shared a second-wicket partnership of 184 with Bunty Longrigg
, who made a rather faster 101.
The 1934 season was Case's last complete season in first-class cricket and in terms of batting average his most successful: he made 1049 runs at an average of 28.35 despite missing several matches through injury. "Case could generally be relied upon for runs," wrote Wisden, a useful attribute in a poor batting side. His single century, the ninth and last of his career, was an unbeaten 106 in what Wisden termed "a remarkable match" against Gloucestershire at Bristol. Somerset trailed Gloucestershire by 50 runs after the first innings: "Then, on a crumbling pitch, Parker and Goddard
gained such a mastery that Somerset lost seven batsmen for 37, but Case and Bennett
pulled the game round in an eighth(-wicket) stand of 125. Case scored readily off good-length bowling, at times hitting very hard." Somerset totalled 192 and won the match by 39 runs.
Case was injured halfway through the 1935 season, and played in only 13 matches, scoring just 361 runs. His last first-class match was another derby match against Gloucestershire, this time at Bath, and again his intervention was decisive: set 101 to win, Somerset had slumped to 85 for 9 when the injured Case came in at No 11 to join Horace Hazell
, the left-arm spinner who was Somerset's normal No 11 for more than 20 years. Together, they hit off the runs to win the match by one wicket. Case was unable to take part in any further matches and he retired from first-class cricket at the end of the season. Wisden, which had not always been complimentary, wrote that he was missed in the second half of the 1935 season: "If never a stylist, Case could often be relied upon to stay a collapse, and for practically half the season his stubborn tactics were much missed," it wrote.
Frome
Frome is a town and civil parish in northeast Somerset, England. Located at the eastern end of the Mendip Hills, the town is built on uneven high ground, and centres around the River Frome. The town is approximately south of Bath, east of the county town, Taunton and west of London. In the 2001...
, Somerset
Somerset
The ceremonial and non-metropolitan county of Somerset in South West England borders Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west. It is partly bounded to the north and west by the Bristol Channel and the estuary of the...
on 7 September 1895 and died at Keyford, Frome, Somerset on 11 November 1969, played first-class
First-class cricket
First-class cricket is a class of cricket that consists of matches of three or more days' scheduled duration, that are between two sides of eleven players and are officially adjudged first-class by virtue of the standard of the competing teams...
cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
for Somerset
Somerset County Cricket Club
Somerset County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Somerset...
as an amateur batsman between 1925 and 1935.
Case was a right-handed middle-order batsman whose batting technique, in one account, was "limited and effective". He also kept wicket very occasionally in the period at the end of the 1920s and into the 1930s when regular Somerset wicketkeeper Wally Luckes
Wally Luckes
Walter Thomas "Wally" Luckes, born in Lambeth, London on 1 January 1901 and died at Bridgwater, Somerset on 27 October 1982, was a cricketer who played for Somerset....
was ill. Although the Somerset side in Case's time often contained amateur players who appeared in relatively few matches, Case was virtually a regular, appearing in 255 matches for the county in 11 seasons, plus two for the Gentlemen in Gentlemen v Players
Gentlemen v Players
The Gentlemen v Players game was a first-class cricket match that was generally played on an annual basis between one team consisting of amateurs and one of professionals . The first two games took place in 1806 but the fixture was not revived until 1819. It was more or less annual thereafter...
games in 1931 and 1934.
Before cricket
Case was educated at King's School, BrutonKing's School, Bruton
King's Bruton is an independent fully co-educational secondary day and boarding school based in Bruton, Somerset, England. It was founded in 1519 by Richard FitzJames, and received royal foundation status around 30 years later in the reign of Edward VI...
. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant
Second Lieutenant
Second lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer military rank in many armed forces.- United Kingdom and Commonwealth :The rank second lieutenant was introduced throughout the British Army in 1871 to replace the rank of ensign , although it had long been used in the Royal Artillery, Royal...
in the Third Battalion of the Dorsetshire Regiment and served with the regiment throughout the First World War. In October 1918, the London Gazette
London Gazette
The London Gazette is one of the official journals of record of the British government, and the most important among such official journals in the United Kingdom, in which certain statutory notices are required to be published...
reported he had been promoted to captain the previous December, but this notice was rescinded five days later. By 1919, he was on the reserve officer list. He left the army on 1 April 1920.
Early cricket career
Case played one Minor Counties cricket match for DorsetDorset County Cricket Club
Dorset County Cricket Club is one of the county clubs which make up the Minor Counties in the English domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Dorset and playing in the Minor Counties Championship and the MCCA Knockout Trophy...
in 1923. In 1925, he began playing fairly regularly for Somerset, batting mostly in the middle order but sometimes opening the innings. It was as an opener that he made his first first-class 50, an innings of 59 in a first-wicket partnership of 117 with his captain John Daniell
John Daniell (cricketer)
John Daniell, was an international rugby union player for England and a first-class cricketer for Somerset and Cambridge University Cricket Club....
in the match against Essex
Essex County Cricket Club
Essex County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh national cricket structure, representing the historic county of Essex. Its limited overs team is called the Essex Eagles, their team colours this season are blue.The club plays most of its home games...
at Taunton. In the season as a whole, in 15 first-class matches he scored 349 runs at an average
Batting average
Batting average is a statistic in both cricket and baseball that measures the performance of cricket batsmen and baseball hitters. The two statistics are related in that baseball averages are directly descended from the concept of cricket averages.- Cricket :...
of 13.96. There was a small improvement on these figures in 1926, when Case played in 20 matches and scored 471 runs at an average of 15.70, although he did not reach 50 in any innings.
Case's big advance as a cricketer came in 1927. Wisden
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom...
noted that he "made great strides as a batsman, almost doubling his runs and increasing his average by nearly ten". His final figures for the season were 920 runs at 23.58. These included his first two centuries. The higher of these was 122 in the match against Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire County Cricket Club
Gloucestershire County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh national cricket structure, representing the historic county of Gloucestershire. Its limited overs team is called the Gloucestershire Gladiators....
at Taunton, when he put on 235 for the fifth wicket with Jack White
Jack White (cricketer)
John Cornish White, known as "Farmer" or "Jack", was an English cricketer who played for Somerset and England. White was named Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1929...
, who also made a debut century. The stand was a record for the fifth wicket for Somerset and remained so for 78 years until beaten by the 320 that John Francis
John Francis (cricketer)
John Francis is an English cricketer who currently plays for Somerset. He is a left-handed batsman and an occasional slow left-arm bowler....
and Ian Blackwell
Ian Blackwell
Ian David Blackwell is an English cricketer. A left-arm orthodox spinner and powerful middle-order batsman, he has played for England in one-day and Test sides, and plays county cricket for Durham, having left Somerset at the end of the 2008 season.-Career:Blackwell was called up for the England...
put on against a Durham university side in 2005. Later in the season, Case made an unbeaten 107 in the match against Sussex
Sussex County Cricket Club
Sussex County Cricket Club is the oldest of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Sussex. The club was founded as a successor to Brighton Cricket Club which was a representative of the county of Sussex as a...
at Taunton; he made 44 not out
Not out
In cricket, a batsman will be not out if he comes out to bat in an innings and has not been dismissed by the end of the innings. One may similarly describe a batsman as not out while the innings is still in progress...
in the first innings batting at No 8, and was promoted to No 4 for the second innings when he again carried his bat.
Wisden's Somerset notes for the 1927 season give a view of Case's batting style. "Cramped in style, and with scarcely any free use of wrists or shoulders, Case yet batted far better than could be seen from the ring," it said. "His defence was very difficult to get through and, with little uplift of his bat, he put unexpected power into his drives and pulls." A more recent account is more forthright: "The kindest adjective to evoke his style was probably ugly," wrote David Foot in a 1986 history of Somerset cricket. "He didn't go in for back lifts and expansive sweeps of the blade; he didn't really go in for attacking shots at all. There was no athleticism in his movement." Foot recounts a story from a match against Nottinghamshire
Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club
Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Nottinghamshire, and the current county champions. Its limited overs team is called the Nottinghamshire Outlaws...
in which Bill Voce
Bill Voce
Bill Voce was an English cricketer. He played for the Nottinghamshire and England, and was an instrumental part of England's infamous Bodyline tour of Australia in 1932–1933.-Life and career:...
was experimenting with leg theory
Leg theory
Leg theory is a bowling tactic in the sport of cricket. The term leg theory is somewhat archaic and seldom used any more, but the basic tactic still plays a part in modern cricket....
bowling: "(Case) missed the ball, fell in a ludicrous heap and then picked up a stump instead of the bat."
Case's 1927 record set the pattern for the next seven seasons. He missed a few matches in 1928, and his aggregate of runs fell to 685, but the average improved to 24.46; in 1929, he made 1000 runs in a season for the first time with 1035 runs, though the average fell back slightly to 21.56 and the highest score was only 77. There was a third century in 1930 – 108 against Middlesex
Middlesex County Cricket Club
Middlesex County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Middlesex. It was announced in February 2009 that Middlesex changed their limited overs name from the Middlesex Crusaders, to the...
at Taunton – and he missed the 1000 runs in the season by only 15. In 1931, there were 1034 runs, and in the first three matches of the season, Case increased his highest first-class score twice. First, in the match against Hampshire
Hampshire County Cricket Club
Hampshire County Cricket Club represents the historic county of Hampshire in cricket's County Championship. The club was founded in 1863 as a successor to the Hampshire county cricket teams and has played at the Antelope Ground from then until 1885, before moving to the County Ground where it...
at Taunton, he hit 131 with 12 fours. Then, against Surrey
Surrey County Cricket Club
Surrey County Cricket Club is one of the 18 professional county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Surrey. Its limited overs team is called the Surrey Lions...
at The Oval
The Oval
The Kia Oval, still commonly referred to by its original name of The Oval, is an international cricket ground in Kennington, in the London Borough of Lambeth. In the past it was also sometimes called the Kennington Oval...
, he came in at No 6 after four Somerset wickets had fallen for 35 runs, all of them to Edward Sheffield, and made 155 in 210 minutes.
Later career
Case's form dipped in 1932 and he managed only 539 runs in the season with an average of 19.96. His one century in the season came in a match against NorthamptonshireNorthamptonshire County Cricket Club
Northamptonshire County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Northamptonshire. Its limited overs team is called the Northants Steelbacks. The traditional club colour is Maroon. During the...
on his home ground at Frome, when his 112 enabled Somerset to recover from 46 for five to reach 295 in the second innings, though the match was still lost. But he more than doubled his aggregate in the following season, 1933, reaching 1146 runs at an average of 26.65, and this was his best total of runs for a single season. Case's methods did not meet with Wisden's approval in one of his two centuries in the 1933 season: his innings of 132 against Hampshire at Bath took 260 minutes and Case was accused of "displaying exaggerated care" in a match where the first day (of three) had been lost to rain and which ended without even two innings being completed. His second century of the summer was an innings of 111 in the match against Middlesex at Weston-super-Mare
Clarence Park, Weston-super-Mare
Clarence Park was given to the town of Weston-super-Mare by Rebecca Davies in memory of her husband. The cricket pavilion at the park dates from 1882. A multitude of sports have been played at the park, including cricket. The ground is owned by the local council. It is currently used by...
, when he shared a second-wicket partnership of 184 with Bunty Longrigg
Bunty Longrigg
Edmund Fallowfield Longrigg, usually known as "Bunty", born at Batheaston, Somerset on 16 April 1906 and died at Bath, Somerset on 23 July 1974, played cricket for Somerset and Cambridge University...
, who made a rather faster 101.
The 1934 season was Case's last complete season in first-class cricket and in terms of batting average his most successful: he made 1049 runs at an average of 28.35 despite missing several matches through injury. "Case could generally be relied upon for runs," wrote Wisden, a useful attribute in a poor batting side. His single century, the ninth and last of his career, was an unbeaten 106 in what Wisden termed "a remarkable match" against Gloucestershire at Bristol. Somerset trailed Gloucestershire by 50 runs after the first innings: "Then, on a crumbling pitch, Parker and Goddard
Tom Goddard
Tom Goddard was the fifth highest wicket taker in first-class cricket....
gained such a mastery that Somerset lost seven batsmen for 37, but Case and Bennett
Michael Bennett (cricketer)
Geoffrey Michael Bennett played first-class cricket for Somerset between 1928 and 1939.Bennett was born at Bruton, Somerset...
pulled the game round in an eighth(-wicket) stand of 125. Case scored readily off good-length bowling, at times hitting very hard." Somerset totalled 192 and won the match by 39 runs.
Case was injured halfway through the 1935 season, and played in only 13 matches, scoring just 361 runs. His last first-class match was another derby match against Gloucestershire, this time at Bath, and again his intervention was decisive: set 101 to win, Somerset had slumped to 85 for 9 when the injured Case came in at No 11 to join Horace Hazell
Horace Hazell
Horace Leslie Hazell was a cricketer who played for Somerset County Cricket Club in English first-class cricket....
, the left-arm spinner who was Somerset's normal No 11 for more than 20 years. Together, they hit off the runs to win the match by one wicket. Case was unable to take part in any further matches and he retired from first-class cricket at the end of the season. Wisden, which had not always been complimentary, wrote that he was missed in the second half of the 1935 season: "If never a stylist, Case could often be relied upon to stay a collapse, and for practically half the season his stubborn tactics were much missed," it wrote.