Frank Tyson

Frank Tyson

Frank Tyson, the England fast bowler who has died aged 85, was dubbed “Typhoon” Tyson on the strength of his demolition of the Australians in the Ashes series of 1954-55; in the manner of such phenomena, however, the storm soon blew itself out.

Tyson arrived in Australia in 1954 with a reputation for great pace, but for little else; indeed, up to that point in his career he had only taken 105 first class wickets. The great Australian journalist Ray Robinson saw him early in the tour, and confirmed his speed: “From a point 30 paces out towards the boundary (he) comes careering up at an angle, after a few preliminary shuffles which (have been) likened to the pawing of an angry bull about to charge. Tyson’s elbows pump like pistons. He twists his left shoulder foward as his splayed boots pound the turf in 15 giant strides. Tyson’s head tilts to one side until he throws it back as he gathers himself in the effort of delivery. The broad shoulders swivel and the right hand hurls the ball in the general direction of the other end of the wicket. His right side comes plunging through, as if to chase after the ball and hasten it on its course towards the quaking batsman.”

Nothing here of beauty or of style; rather a display of brute and elemental power. Robinson noted that 70 yards separated Tyson from the wicket-keeper at the start of his run.

Tyson did well enough in some of the early matches of the tour, without suggesting anything of the destruction to come. And the first Test match, in which Len Hutton put the Australians on a perfect batting wicket at Brisbane, was later described by Tyson as his “black hour”. He took one for 160 from 29 overs. England were defeated by an innings and 154 runs.

Tyson (right) and Brian Statham leading the England cricket team off the pitch after their victory in the second Test match against Australia in 1954 

But Tyson had learnt a valuable lesson. Deciding that his long run up to the wicket was too exhausting in the Australian heat, he chose to revert to the shorter 15-yard run-up he had used in League cricket. Both Len Hutton and Alf Gover had previously suggested he should do this, but the decision was Tyson’s alone. The results were immediately evident in the match against Victoria. Tyson took six wickets, and it was clear that his bowling had gained greatly in accuracy while losing nothing in pace.

He maintained this form in the second Test at Sydney. After England had been dismissed for 154, Tyson helped them strike back with four wickets; greatly daring he even bowled a bumper at Ray Lindwall, which had the Australian fast bowler caught at the wicket.

Lindwall retaliated in England’s second innings, and laid out Tyson, who was carried off the pitch to hospital. He had a lump the size of an egg where the ball had struck him on the back of the head, but the X-ray revealed no other damage.

Australia began the last day needing only 151 more runs to win, with eight wickets in hand. But Tyson, fully recovered, and with a gale blowing over his shoulder from Botany Bay, was a man possessed. In his second over he yorked two men through sheer pace; and he finished with six for 85 as England won by 38 runs. Four of his victims were clean bowled; two caught behind the wicket.

Ray Lindwall had come in to bat wary of a retaliatory bouncer, only to have his stumps scattered by a half volley. For long afterwards his team-mates ribbed him that Australia would have won the Ashes if only he had never cracked Tyson on the head.

Tyson repeated the medicine in the third Test at Melbourne, taking seven wickets for 28 in Australia’s second innings and finishing the match off with a spell of six wickets for 16 runs from 6·3 overs. He ended the series with 28 wickets at 20·82 apiece.

Frank Tyson: he left batsmen 'quaking'

Not since Larwood, and the Bodyline series of 1932-33, had Australia been so humbled; and it is doubtful if Larwood, or anyone else, has ever bowled so fast for England. When England went on to New Zealand, Tyson was timed at 89mph, but that was in the nets, when he was wearing two sweaters. More than most fast bowlers, he needed the heat of battle to give his best.

Perhaps the most curious fact about Tyson’s triumphant tour was that in the course of it his weight increased from 12 to 13-and-a-half stone.

Frank Holmes Tyson was born at Farnworth, near Bolton in Lancashire, on June 6 1930 and brought up in a small council house at Middleton, near Manchester. His father, a foreman in a bleaching works, had no interest in cricket; no more did his mother, though a staunch Yorkshirewoman; or his brother David, who was eight years older.

Even in infancy, though, Frank was fixated on the game, which he used to play on the waste ground behind his house, using an oil drum for a wicket. But it was not until he was evacuated to Fleetwood, near Blackpool, in the Second World War that he attended a school with a proper cricket pitch.

Later, at Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Middleton, he did well enough to be selected, at the age of only 15, to play for the town in the Central Lancashire League. It was in this hard school that he honed his talent over the next five years. By 1948, when he helped Middleton to win the Wood Cup, he was beginning to be recognised as a decidedly fast bowler.

He also played for Manchester Schoolboys, and was invited by Lancashire to a trial at Old Trafford. The coach, Harry Makepeace, declared he could make an England bowler of him, and invited him to join the groundstaff, but Tyson’s father would not allow him to consider becoming a professional cricketer before going to a university.

First, however, came National Service. Tyson joined the Royal Signals at Catterick, though his summers continued to be devoted to cricket. Playing for the Army at Lord’s, he bowled “Writer P B H May” for a duck.

In 1949 he had his only game for Lancashire; representing the second XI against Northumberland at Old Trafford, he arrived late and pulled a muscle after five overs. In 1950 he broke his left leg playing soccer (a sport at which he had been good enough to be selected for Lancashire schools). By 1951 the Lancashire committee had clearly lost faith in his durability. “There will be no opportunity for you this season,” the secretary wrote in 1951.

Meanwhile Tyson had begun at Durham University, where he began a long and ultimately successful struggle for a degree, much inhibited by cricket. Even during the 1954-55 tour of Australia he was still swotting at the English poets, giving rise to the story that he recited Wordsworth as he ran into bowl.

Tyson (right) and his fellow Northamptonshire player Keith Andrew in 1954 on the sholders of their team-mates  

Tyson reckoned he was as fast a bowler at Durham as he ever was afterwards, and by the early 1950s stories were beginning to circulate about him – such as that of Frank Russell, founder of the Parasites Cricket Club, who as a batsman survived a terrifying over, only to faint in the pavilion afterwards.

In 1951 he was engaged as professional for Knypersley in the North Staffordshire League, were he did superbly well. He also had an opportunity to bowl against Len Hutton in pre-season warm-up game at Redcar. “Who the hell’s this?” the great batsman enquired after the first over.

As a result of a recommendation from the Australian Jock Livingston, Tyson joined Northamptonshire in 1952, though he was obliged to wait a year to qualify for county championship matches.

He had some modest success in county matches in 1953, and put in a sensational performance against the Australians, when he took two wickets in his opening over. At Old Trafford he delivered a thunderbolt which almost went for six byes; it was still rising from the bounce as it soared over the wicket-keeper, and hit the ground just once more before cannoning into the boundary boards.

Tyson’s progress was maintained in 1954. He made a deep impression against Middlesex at Lord’s in July, laying out Bill Edrich, and beating even Denis Compton for pace. A week later, and the day after being awarded his county cap, he was chosen for the tour of Australia. In August he took five for 57 in his first Test, against Pakistan.

Tyson returned from Australia a hero – “have a Tyson, Frank Capstan” proclaimed a cigarette advertisement – and at first seemed as dangerous as ever on the pitch. In the first Test of 1955, he took six for 28 (including a final spell of five for five) in South Africa’s second innings. Injury kept him out of the second Test at Lord’s (in fact he never played in a Test at Lord’s), but in the Third Test at Old Trafford he secured six more wickets – though England went down by three wickets.

At this stage Tyson had taken 58 wickets at 17·03 apiece in ten Test matches; he was destined, however, to play in only seven more Tests, in which he captured but 14 more wickets. Partly he was undone by injury, partly by the featherbed wickets at Northampton; in his whole career he took only 509 wickets in the county championship.

He did little in South Africa in 1956-57 (apart from preaching a sermon in Johannesburg, and taking six for 40 in the last innings of the final Test), and was lucky to be chosen for the Australian tour of 1958-59, when he played in only the last two Tests, and in two more against New Zealand. Still, his final total of 76 Test wickets left him with a very creditable average of 18·56. He retired in 1960, with a career haul of 766 wickets at 20·92.

Frank Tyson in 2004

Tyson briefly taught in Northampton, but in 1962 emigrated to Australia, complaining bitterly about the difficulties of keeping a wife and children on a salary of £14 a week: “In Australia I’ll be making £34 a week teaching the same subjects.”

For some years he was a housemaster at Carey Grammar School in Melbourne. By 1970, however, he was running an indoor cricket school, and in 1975 he was appointed coaching director for Victoria. From 1982 he fulfilled the same function for Queensland.

He also commentated on cricket for the Observer and The Daily Telegraph. He published an excellent autobiography, A Typhoon Called Tyson (1961, republished 1990) as well as The Test Within (1987), a study of 22 cricketers.

Frank Tyson married, in 1957, Ursula Miels, whom he had met on his first tour of Australia. They had a son and two daughters.

Frank Tyson, born June 6 1930, died September 27 2015