Percy Holmes, born at Oakes, Huddersfield, on November 25, 1886 and died at Huddersfield on September 3, 1971, was a cricketer who played for Yorkshire and England. Huddersfield is a large town in the metropolitan borough of Kirklees within the county of West Yorkshire in England. ... November 25 is the 329th (in leap years the 330th) day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1886 is a common year starting on Friday (click on link to calendar) // Events January 18 - Modern field hockey is born with the formation of The Hockey Association in England. ... September 3 is the 246th day of the year (247th in leap years). ... 1971 (MCMLXXI) is a common year starting on Friday (click for link to calendar). ... A cricketer is a term used to refer to a person who plays cricket. ... Yorkshire County Cricket Club is a county cricket club based at Headingley in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. ... The English cricket team is a national cricket team which nominally represents England and Wales, but is a de facto United Kingdom team. ...

An opening batsman and a fine fielder, Holmes was a late developer who played only a handful of matches for Yorkshire before the First World War, but came to immediate prominence after it with 1886 runs and five centuries in 1919. He was named as a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1920. Ypres, 1917, in the vicinity of the Battle of Passchendaele. ... The Wisden Cricketers of the Year award is made annually in the pages of the Wisden Cricketers Almanack yearbook. ...

With Herbert Sutcliffe, Holmes formed for 15 seasons the most prolific opening partnership in first-class cricket, and 69 times they put on 100 runs or more for the first wicket. Their partnership culminated, in 1932 against Essex at Leyton, in a then-world record stand of 555, beating the previous Yorkshire (and world) record by Brown and Tunnicliffe in 1898 by just one run. Holmes contributed an unbeaten 224 to the partnership, which remained the world record first-wicket partnership for 44 years. It is still the highest partnership for any wicket in English domestic cricket and the fifth highest ever for any wicket in the world. Herbert Sutcliffe (born November 24, 1894, Summerbridge, Harrogate, Yorkshire, England; died January 22, 1978, Cross Hills, Yorkshire, England) was arguably the greatest opening batsman in cricket history and undoubtedly one of the greatest players of any type the game has known. ... First-class cricket matches are those of at least three days length in which both teams have two innings each, and which involve either international teams or the highest division of domestic competition. ... Essex County Cricket Club is a county cricket club based at the County Cricket Ground, Chelmsford, though with smaller grounds elsewhere. ... Leyton is a place in the London Borough of Waltham Forest. ... John Thomas Brown (20 August 1869 - 4 November 1904), known as Jack, was an English professional cricketer who played primarily as a batsman. ...

Holmes' Test cricket career was limited to just seven matches, largely because Jack Hobbs was a fixture in the England team until Holmes was past 40 years of age. He was picked and discarded, like many others, as England chopped and changed their eleven in 1921 in a vain attempt to match the Australian cricket team under Warwick Armstrong; in fact, Holmes was top scorer, with 30 out of 112, in the first innings of the first Test at Trent Bridge, but he scored only 8 in the second innings and the match was over inside two days. He then had to wait six years before being picked for the 1927-28 tour to South Africa under Rony Stanyforth, where he opened with Sutcliffe in all five Tests, making 302 runs, including four scores of more than 50 and a highest of 88, but finishing with a "pair" in the last Test. His seventh and final Test came 10 days after his world record stand, when, at 45, he was picked for the Lord's match against India in 1932. He made just 6 and 11. Test cricket is the longest form of the sport of cricket. ... Sir John Berry Jack Hobbs, KBE (born 16 December 1882 in Cambridge, England, died 21 December 1963 in Hove, Sussex) played cricket for Surrey and England. ... The Australian cricket team is today regarded as one of the leading international teams in world cricket, having been the unquestionably dominant team for much of the previous decade. ... Warwick Windridge Armstrong (bornMay 22, 1879 in Kyneton, Victoria, died July 13, 1947 in Sydney, New South Wales) was an Australian cricketer. ... For more coverage of cricket, go to the Cricket portal. ... Lieutenant-Colonel Ronald (Rony) Thomas Stanyforth (30 May 1892-20 February 1964) was an English cricketer who played for Oxford University, Yorkshire County Cricket Club and England. ... The Media Centre at Lords Cricket Ground Lords Cricket Ground is a cricket ground in St Johns Wood in London. ...

In county cricket, Holmes was reliably prolific. He scored more than 2000 runs in seven seasons between 1920 and 1930 and more than 1500 runs in six other seasons. He scored 1021 runs in the month of June 1925 at an average of 102 and that sequence included his highest score, 315 not out at Lord's against Middlesex, at that point the highest score ever made on the ground. In all first-class cricket, he scored 30,573 runs at an average of more than 42 runs per innings, with 67 centuries: he is 58th on the all-time list of run-getters. Middlesex County Cricket Club is a first-class cricket club in England, named after the historic county of Middlesex which their home ground, Lords Cricket Ground in London, is located. ...

According to Neville Cardus^[1], Holmes was a jaunty, restless character who believed cricket should be fun. He tended to score quickly and to play shots, such as cuts and pulls, that "more correct" batsmen such as Sutcliffe rarely used. Sir Neville Cardus (2 April 1889 - 27 February 1975) was a celebrated British journalist. ...

Reference

• ^  Obituary of Percy Holmes by Neville Cardus, Wisden 1972 edition, page 130.