Geoff Lomax
Encyclopedia
James Geoffrey Lomax, born at Rochdale
, Lancashire
on 20 May 1925 and died in Frenchay Hospital
, Bristol
on 21 May 1992, played first-class
cricket
as a right-handed batsman and right-arm fast-medium bowler for Lancashire
and Somerset
between 1949 and 1962.
Lomax's career figures appear modest but his obituary in Wisden Cricketers' Almanack
in 1993 was generous in tribute: "Figures cannot illustrate all the in-filling he did and his unselfish response to whatever the situation demanded, or the fact that he was a real gentleman."
(66 wickets), Bob Berry
(47) and Malcolm Hilton
(42), all of whose wickets cost fewer than 12 runs apiece. In 1949, Lomax moved on into occasional first-team matches, opening the bowling in his first first-class game against Oxford University
, when he bowled 23 overs in the match for 31 runs (and two wickets). There were six first-class matches in 1949, nine in 1950 and eight in 1951; in none of them did he manage to take more than three wickets in an innings and nor did he make significant runs. In 1951, in the match against Middlesex
at Old Trafford, he made his first score of more than 50, with 52, and put on 103 for the seventh wicket with the schoolboy Colin Smith
.
The 1952 season was Lomax's only season of regular first-team cricket for Lancashire: he played in 27 of the county's first-class matches, plus one other end-of-season game for North v South at Kingston-upon-Thames. As in the Minor Counties side four years earlier, he was employed largely to open the bowling, usually alongside Brian Statham
, before the spinners Tattersall, Hilton and Berry took over. In all matches across the season he took 51 wickets at the respectable average of 26.11. His best bowling was his first five-wicket haul, with five for 18 in Surrey
's second innings as the eventual County champions
, albeit without four Test
stars, were bowled out for 86 to lose by an innings and 70 runs at The Oval
. Wisden noted that Lomax's "pace and lift" was met with "only feeble resistance". Lomax's batting was often useful too, usually at No 7 or No 8 in the batting order, although when either Jack Ikin
or Cyril Washbrook
was called up for Tests, he opened the innings, with indifferent results. In the season as a whole he made 694 runs at an average of 17.79, and he passed 50 twice, the higher innings being 78 against Kent
at Mote Park, Maidstone
, when he shared a sixth-wicket partnership of 193 in two hours with his captain, Nigel Howard
, who made an unbeaten 138. Lomax was awarded his county cap by Lancashire for his work in 1952.
After that, the 1953 season was an anticlimax, with just 36 runs and 11 wickets from only seven matches, as Lancashire abandoned any attempt at a balanced attack and used the left-handed batsman Alan Wharton
for most of the season as Statham's opening partner in the bowling. At the end of the season, Lomax left Lancashire and signed for Somerset, which had just finished for the second consecutive season at the bottom of the County Championship and was recruiting from far and wide.
and the Australian-born Surrey slow left-arm bowler John McMahon
. As at Lancashire, the balance of the Somerset bowling attack was very much towards spin bowling; Lomax was used as an opening bowler, but even so he bowled fewer than half the overs that McMahon delivered, and his 46 wickets for the season came at the rather high bowling average of 32.52. These figures, however, included a return of six for 75 in Surrey's first innings in the match at The Oval
, and these were to remain the best bowling figures of his career. Lomax's batting improved and he batted mostly at No 6 or No 7 in the order. Early in the season against Yorkshire
he equalled his previous highest score of 78. Then in mid-August he scored 101, his maiden first-class century, in the match against Northamptonshire
at Taunton, despite sustaining an elbow injury against an attack that included Frank Tyson
, then at the height of his fast-bowling powers. In all matches, Lomax made 983 runs at an average of 19.27 runs per innings. He was awarded his Somerset county cap.
The 1955 season saw Somerset recruit a new fast-medium bowler, Bryan Lobb
. Lomax's bowling was used less, and he took only 19 wickets at the high cost of 56.47 runs per wicket. As a batsman he was again useful in the late middle order, totalling 892 runs for an average of 21.23; his highest score for the season was just 71. Somerset remained at the bottom of the County Championship table in both of Lomax's first two seasons with the team. Somerset improved to 15th (out of 17) in 1956, but Lomax's performances remained very similar: an aggregate of 960 runs at 19.59 and just 17 wickets at 67.46. His highest score was 99 in the match against Cambridge University
, when he put on 177 in 116 minutes for the sixth-wicket with Harold Stephenson
, setting a new Somerset record for a sixth wicket partnership in a first-class match. After this match, Lomax was promoted to open the innings for much of the rest of the season, though he moved down the order again in August when the amateur Dennis Silk
was available to open.
For the first time since Lomax joined the county, Somerset had in 1957 a relatively strong team, and a loss of form meant that Lomax was uncertain of his place in the team for much of the season. He played in only half the first-class matches, made just 351 runs at an average of 12.10 and bowled only 110 overs, taking 13 wickets. But he was back in the side as a regular in 1958, which was Somerset's most successful season in the County Championship since 1892, and he not only became part of a settled opening partnership with Bill Alley
, but also completed 1000 runs in a season for the first time. His final aggregate was 1096 runs at average of 21.92; there were no centuries in this season. In addition, with the emphasis of the Somerset bowling now firmly on seam rather than spin, he bowled four times the number of overs he had in 1957, and took 50 wickets at the, for him, low average of 22.48. His best bowling of the season was again against Surrey, with five for 26 in the match at Taunton – the third five-wicket haul of his career, and all of them against Surrey. He had a particularly successful match against Nottinghamshire
at Weston-super-Mare
, scoring 80 in Somerset's first innings out of a total of 170, finishing the Nottinghamshire second innings with a hat-trick
, and then hitting a quick 53 to set Somerset on the road to victory. In its notes on Somerset for the season, Wisden wrote: "Given more scope for his medium pace bowling, Lomax might conceivably perform the double
one season."
That didn't happen, but the 1959 season was again successful for Lomax, with 1298 runs at an average of 24.96, the highest in terms of both aggregate and average in his career. He opened the Somerset batting all season and had a new regular opening partner in Graham Atkinson
. He maintained the improvement in his bowling, with 43 wickets at an average of 25.90. The five wickets he took for 36 runs in Northamptonshire's second innings of the match at Northampton was the only time in his career that he took five or more wickets in an innings against a side other than Surrey. The 1960 match against the same opponents at the same venue had a less happy outcome: in the third first-class fixture of the season, Lomax made 51 of a first wicket partnership of 108 with Atkinson before breaking a bone in his wrist which then kept him out of cricket for the rest of the 1960 season.
Lomax returned to the Somerset side as a regular player in 1961, but his role as opening batsman had been taken in his absence by Brian Roe
, so Lomax batted in the middle order. He made 938 runs at an average of 19.14 and took 36 wickets at 33.97; there were no centuries and no five-wicket innings. The batting record in 1962 was similar, with 865 runs at an average of 24.02. There was, though, finally a second century to add to the one he had scored in 1954 – an unbeaten 104 in the match against Sussex
at Eastbourne
, which was the highest innings of Lomax's career. By contrast, Lomax's bowling in 1962 was negligible: just nine wickets all season at a high cost. Towards the end of the 1962 season, Lomax was left out of the side for some matches and he retired from first-class cricket at the end of the season.
Rochdale
Rochdale is a large market town in Greater Manchester, England. It lies amongst the foothills of the Pennines on the River Roch, north-northwest of Oldham, and north-northeast of the city of Manchester. Rochdale is surrounded by several smaller settlements which together form the Metropolitan...
, Lancashire
Lancashire
Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...
on 20 May 1925 and died in Frenchay Hospital
Frenchay Hospital
Frenchay Hospital is a large hospital situated in Frenchay, South Gloucestershire, on the outskirts of Bristol, England, part of the North Bristol NHS Trust....
, Bristol
Bristol
Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...
on 21 May 1992, 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...
as a right-handed batsman and right-arm fast-medium bowler for Lancashire
Lancashire County Cricket Club
Lancashire County Cricket Club represents the historic county of Lancashire in cricket's County Championship. The club was founded in 1864 as a successor to Manchester Cricket Club and has played at Old Trafford since then...
and 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...
between 1949 and 1962.
Cricketing style
Tall and fair-haired, Lomax was initially seen as a fast-medium bowler who could bat a bit, but in his later cricket career with Somerset was used mainly as a batsman, often opening the innings. He was, says one account, "an artisan all-round cricketer". It goes on: "He found himself, at some time, batting in almost every position in the order; he pegged away at just above medium pace, capable of his two or three wickets. In the slips he hardly ever dropped a catch."Lomax's career figures appear modest but his obituary in Wisden Cricketers' Almanack
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom...
in 1993 was generous in tribute: "Figures cannot illustrate all the in-filling he did and his unselfish response to whatever the situation demanded, or the fact that he was a real gentleman."
Lancashire player
Lomax was a regular member of the 1948 Lancashire Second Eleven which won the Minor Counties Championship, but though he took 19 wickets at an average of 16.94 his main task appears to have been to start the bowling before giving way to the spin trio of Roy TattersallRoy Tattersall
Roy Tattersall is an English former Lancashire cricketer, who played sixteen Tests for England as a specialist off spin bowler....
(66 wickets), Bob Berry
Bob Berry (cricketer)
Robert Berry was an English cricketer. He played in two Tests in 1950. He played county cricket for Lancashire from 1948 to 1954, for Worcestershire from 1955 to 1958, and for Derbyshire from 1959 to 1962...
(47) and Malcolm Hilton
Malcolm Hilton
Malcolm Jameson Hilton was an English left-arm spin bowler, who played for Lancashire and in four Test matches for England....
(42), all of whose wickets cost fewer than 12 runs apiece. In 1949, Lomax moved on into occasional first-team matches, opening the bowling in his first first-class game against Oxford University
Oxford University Cricket Club
Oxford University Cricket Club is a first-class cricket team, representing the University of Oxford. It plays its home games at the University Parks in Oxford, England...
, when he bowled 23 overs in the match for 31 runs (and two wickets). There were six first-class matches in 1949, nine in 1950 and eight in 1951; in none of them did he manage to take more than three wickets in an innings and nor did he make significant runs. In 1951, in the match 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 Old Trafford, he made his first score of more than 50, with 52, and put on 103 for the seventh wicket with the schoolboy Colin Smith
Colin Stansfield Smith
Professor Sir Colin Stansfield Smith CBE, is a British architect and academic. He played over 100 games of first-class cricket in the 1950s.-Architecture:...
.
The 1952 season was Lomax's only season of regular first-team cricket for Lancashire: he played in 27 of the county's first-class matches, plus one other end-of-season game for North v South at Kingston-upon-Thames. As in the Minor Counties side four years earlier, he was employed largely to open the bowling, usually alongside Brian Statham
Brian Statham
John Brian "George" Statham, CBE was one of the leading English fast bowlers in 20th-century English cricket. Initially a bowler of a brisk fast-medium pace, Statham was able to remodel his action to generate enough speed to become genuinely fast...
, before the spinners Tattersall, Hilton and Berry took over. In all matches across the season he took 51 wickets at the respectable average of 26.11. His best bowling was his first five-wicket haul, with five for 18 in 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...
's second innings as the eventual County champions
County Championship
The County Championship is the domestic first-class cricket competition in England and Wales...
, albeit without four Test
Test cricket
Test cricket is the longest form of the sport of cricket. Test matches are played between national representative teams with "Test status", as determined by the International Cricket Council , with four innings played between two teams of 11 players over a period of up to a maximum five days...
stars, were bowled out for 86 to lose by an innings and 70 runs 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...
. Wisden noted that Lomax's "pace and lift" was met with "only feeble resistance". Lomax's batting was often useful too, usually at No 7 or No 8 in the batting order, although when either Jack Ikin
Jack Ikin
John Thomas Ikin, known as Jack Ikin was an English cricketer, who played in eighteen Tests from 1946 to 1955...
or Cyril Washbrook
Cyril Washbrook
Cyril Washbrook was an English cricketer, who played for Lancashire and England. He had a long career, split by World War II, and ending when he was aged 44. Washbrook, who is most famous for opening the batting for England with Len Hutton, which he did fifty one times, played a total of 592...
was called up for Tests, he opened the innings, with indifferent results. In the season as a whole he made 694 runs at an average of 17.79, and he passed 50 twice, the higher innings being 78 against Kent
Kent County Cricket Club
Kent County Cricket Club is one of the 18 first class county county cricket clubs which make up the English and Welsh national cricket structure, representing the county of Kent...
at Mote Park, Maidstone
Mote Park
Mote Park is a 180 hectare multi-use public park in Maidstone, Kent. Previously a country estate it was converted to landscaped park land at the end of the 18th century before becoming a municipal park. It includes the former stately home Mote House together with a miniature railway, pitch and putt...
, when he shared a sixth-wicket partnership of 193 in two hours with his captain, Nigel Howard
Nigel Howard
Nigel David Howard was an English cricketer, who played for Lancashire and England. Born in Gee Cross, Hyde, Cheshire, he captained England for the tour to India in the only four Test matches he played in, winning one and drawing three, although the series was drawn after the fifth Test match was...
, who made an unbeaten 138. Lomax was awarded his county cap by Lancashire for his work in 1952.
After that, the 1953 season was an anticlimax, with just 36 runs and 11 wickets from only seven matches, as Lancashire abandoned any attempt at a balanced attack and used the left-handed batsman Alan Wharton
Alan Wharton
Alan Wharton was an English cricketer, who played for Lancashire, Leicestershire and England.-Life and career:Wharton was born in Heywood, Lancashire, England....
for most of the season as Statham's opening partner in the bowling. At the end of the season, Lomax left Lancashire and signed for Somerset, which had just finished for the second consecutive season at the bottom of the County Championship and was recruiting from far and wide.
Somerset player
Lomax was one of three new Somerset players in 1954 with previous experience of county cricket – the others were his Lancashire off-spin colleague Jim HiltonJim Hilton
Jim Hilton , born in Werneth, Oldham, Lancashire, was a cricketer who played for Lancashire and Somerset....
and the Australian-born Surrey slow left-arm bowler John McMahon
John McMahon (cricketer)
John William Joseph McMahon was an Australian-born first-class cricketer who played for Surrey and Somerset in England from 1947 to 1957.-Surrey cricketer:...
. As at Lancashire, the balance of the Somerset bowling attack was very much towards spin bowling; Lomax was used as an opening bowler, but even so he bowled fewer than half the overs that McMahon delivered, and his 46 wickets for the season came at the rather high bowling average of 32.52. These figures, however, included a return of six for 75 in Surrey's first innings in the match 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...
, and these were to remain the best bowling figures of his career. Lomax's batting improved and he batted mostly at No 6 or No 7 in the order. Early in the season against Yorkshire
Yorkshire County Cricket Club
Yorkshire County Cricket Club represents the historic county of Yorkshire as one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure....
he equalled his previous highest score of 78. Then in mid-August he scored 101, his maiden first-class century, in the match against Northamptonshire
Northamptonshire 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...
at Taunton, despite sustaining an elbow injury against an attack that included Frank Tyson
Frank Tyson
Frank Holmes Tyson is an England cricketer of the 1950s who became a journalist and cricket commentator after he emigrated to Australia in 1960. Nicknamed "Typhoon Tyson" by the press he was regarded by many commentators as one of the fastest bowlers ever seen in cricket and took 76 wickets in...
, then at the height of his fast-bowling powers. In all matches, Lomax made 983 runs at an average of 19.27 runs per innings. He was awarded his Somerset county cap.
The 1955 season saw Somerset recruit a new fast-medium bowler, Bryan Lobb
Bryan Lobb
Bryan Lobb was a first-class cricketer who played once for Warwickshire and then more than 100 times for Somerset.-Style and personality:...
. Lomax's bowling was used less, and he took only 19 wickets at the high cost of 56.47 runs per wicket. As a batsman he was again useful in the late middle order, totalling 892 runs for an average of 21.23; his highest score for the season was just 71. Somerset remained at the bottom of the County Championship table in both of Lomax's first two seasons with the team. Somerset improved to 15th (out of 17) in 1956, but Lomax's performances remained very similar: an aggregate of 960 runs at 19.59 and just 17 wickets at 67.46. His highest score was 99 in the match against Cambridge University
Cambridge University Cricket Club
Cambridge University Cricket Club is a first-class cricket team. It now plays all but one of its first-class cricket matches as part of the Cambridge University Centre of Cricketing Excellence , which includes Anglia Ruskin University...
, when he put on 177 in 116 minutes for the sixth-wicket with Harold Stephenson
Harold Stephenson
Harold William Stephenson was an English first-class cricketer who played for Somerset. He captained Somerset from 1960 until his retirement in 1964....
, setting a new Somerset record for a sixth wicket partnership in a first-class match. After this match, Lomax was promoted to open the innings for much of the rest of the season, though he moved down the order again in August when the amateur Dennis Silk
Dennis Silk
Dennis Raoul Whitehall Silk, CBE , is a former schoolmaster and international cricketer. He was also a close friend of the poet Siegfried Sassoon, about whom he has spoken and written extensively....
was available to open.
For the first time since Lomax joined the county, Somerset had in 1957 a relatively strong team, and a loss of form meant that Lomax was uncertain of his place in the team for much of the season. He played in only half the first-class matches, made just 351 runs at an average of 12.10 and bowled only 110 overs, taking 13 wickets. But he was back in the side as a regular in 1958, which was Somerset's most successful season in the County Championship since 1892, and he not only became part of a settled opening partnership with Bill Alley
Bill Alley
William Edward Alley was a cricketer who played 400 first-class matches for New South Wales, Somerset and a Commonwealth XI....
, but also completed 1000 runs in a season for the first time. His final aggregate was 1096 runs at average of 21.92; there were no centuries in this season. In addition, with the emphasis of the Somerset bowling now firmly on seam rather than spin, he bowled four times the number of overs he had in 1957, and took 50 wickets at the, for him, low average of 22.48. His best bowling of the season was again against Surrey, with five for 26 in the match at Taunton – the third five-wicket haul of his career, and all of them against Surrey. He had a particularly successful 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...
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...
, scoring 80 in Somerset's first innings out of a total of 170, finishing the Nottinghamshire second innings with a hat-trick
Hat-trick
A hat-trick or hat trick in sport is the achievement of a positive feat three times during a game, or other achievements based on threes. The term was first used in 1858 in cricket to describe HH Stephenson's feat of taking three wickets in three balls. A collection was held for Stephenson, and he...
, and then hitting a quick 53 to set Somerset on the road to victory. In its notes on Somerset for the season, Wisden wrote: "Given more scope for his medium pace bowling, Lomax might conceivably perform the double
Double (cricket)
A cricketer is said to achieve the double if he scores a thousand or more runs and also takes a hundred or more wickets in first-class matches during the course of a single season. The feat is extremely rare outside England because of the smaller number of first-class matches played in most other...
one season."
That didn't happen, but the 1959 season was again successful for Lomax, with 1298 runs at an average of 24.96, the highest in terms of both aggregate and average in his career. He opened the Somerset batting all season and had a new regular opening partner in Graham Atkinson
Graham Atkinson (cricketer)
Graham Atkinson was a cricketer who played first-class and List A cricket for Somerset and Lancashire. He was born in Lofthouse, Leeds, Yorkshire, England.-Early career:...
. He maintained the improvement in his bowling, with 43 wickets at an average of 25.90. The five wickets he took for 36 runs in Northamptonshire's second innings of the match at Northampton was the only time in his career that he took five or more wickets in an innings against a side other than Surrey. The 1960 match against the same opponents at the same venue had a less happy outcome: in the third first-class fixture of the season, Lomax made 51 of a first wicket partnership of 108 with Atkinson before breaking a bone in his wrist which then kept him out of cricket for the rest of the 1960 season.
Lomax returned to the Somerset side as a regular player in 1961, but his role as opening batsman had been taken in his absence by Brian Roe
Brian Roe
Brian Roe, born at Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire, on 27 January 1939, played first-class cricket for Somerset between 1957 and 1966.Roe, a diminutive and defensive right-handed batsman, played mostly as an opener, and was a regular member of the Somerset side between 1961 and 1964. He scored 1,000 runs...
, so Lomax batted in the middle order. He made 938 runs at an average of 19.14 and took 36 wickets at 33.97; there were no centuries and no five-wicket innings. The batting record in 1962 was similar, with 865 runs at an average of 24.02. There was, though, finally a second century to add to the one he had scored in 1954 – an unbeaten 104 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 Eastbourne
The Saffrons
The Saffrons is a multi-purpose sports ground in Eastbourne, East Sussex. The ground is home to Eastbourne Cricket Club, Eastbourne Hockey Club and Eastbourne Town Football Club. There is also an astroturf pitch....
, which was the highest innings of Lomax's career. By contrast, Lomax's bowling in 1962 was negligible: just nine wickets all season at a high cost. Towards the end of the 1962 season, Lomax was left out of the side for some matches and he retired from first-class cricket at the end of the season.