Phil Mead England (Eng)
Batting style	Left-handed batsman (LHB)
Bowling type	Slow left arm orthodox (SLA)
	Tests	First-class
Matches	17	814
Runs scored	1185	55,061
Batting average	49.37	47.67
100s/50s	4/3	153/258
Top score	182 not out	280 not out
Balls bowled	0	18,457
Wickets	0	277
Bowling average	N/A	34.70
5 wickets in innings	0	5
10 wickets in match	0	0
Best bowling	N/A	7-18
Catches/stumpings	4/0	675/0
Test debut: 15 December 1911 Last Test: 5 December 1928 Source: [1] Large sized chicken tender of England/St Georges Cross/State flag of Guernsey, 1936-1985 File links The following pages link to this file: The Ashes Arsenal F.C. Cornwall Cambridgeshire Charlton Athletic F.C. City of London London Borough of Croydon Cheshire Chelsea F.C. Devon England Essex... For more coverage of cricket, go to the Cricket portal. ... Wikipedia has no licensable picture of this cricketer. ... Cricket batsman A batsman in the sport of cricket is a player whose speciality in the game is batting. ... In the sport of cricket there are two categories of bowler: pace bowler and spin bowler. ... Test cricket is the longest form of the sport of cricket. ... First-class cricket matches are those of at least three days length in which both teams have two innings each, involving either international teams or the highest division of domestic competition. ... Batting average is a statistic in both baseball and cricket measuring the performance of baseball hitters and cricket batsmen, respectively. ... This article is about the cricket term. ... Bowling average is a statistic measuring the performance of bowlers in the sport of cricket. ... This article is about the cricket term. ... An innings, or inning, is a segment of a game in any of a variety of sports – most notably baseball and cricket – during which a side takes its turn to bat. ... This article is about the cricket term. ... In the sport of cricket, the term stump has three different meanings: part of the wicket, a manner of dismissing a batsman, and the end of the days play (stumps). Part of the wicket The stumps are three vertical posts supporting the bails to form a wicket at each... December 15 is the 349th day of the year (350th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1911 was a common year starting on Sunday (click on link for calendar). ... December 5 is the 339th day (340th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1928 was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ...

Phil Mead (in full Charles Phillip Mead) was a left-handed batsman for Hampshire and England between 1905 and 1936. His exceptionally straight bat and quick footwork (surprising for a man of heavy build as he was) made him one of the most difficult batsmen to dismiss throughout his career. His mastery over the best county spin bowlers even on the most treacherous pitches is remarkable, but he could also be very good agains the fastest bowling because he could get closer into line than just about any batsman in cricket history. Cricket batsman A batsman in the sport of cricket is a player whose speciality in the game is batting. ...

Mead holds many batting records, notably that of scoring the most runs in the County Championship and the fourth-highest total in all first-class matches. His number of runs for Hampshire, in fact, is the greatest number any batsman has scored for a single team. He also exceeded one thousand runs in every season of first-class cricket except his first - when he only played one match. He was also a fine fieldsman, holding 675 catches. First-class cricket matches are those of at least three days length in which both teams have two innings each, involving either international teams or the highest division of domestic competition. ...

Born on March 9, 1887 in Battersea, Surrey, Phil Mead first trialled for Surrey, but qualified for Hampshire because Surrey's batting strength was such that they were unable to offer him a contract. After one match against the touring Australians when not qualified in 1905, Mead immediately became a regular with Hampshire, but faltered after a promising beginning including 109 against Yorkshire. March 9 is the 68th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (69th in Leap years). ... 1887 is a common year starting on Saturday (click on link for calendar). ... Battersea, as defined by the Metropolitan Borough of Battersea, part of the old County of London, England, before 1965 Battersea is a place in the London Borough of Wandsworth, England. ... Surrey is a county in southern England, one of the Home Counties. ...

However, from 1907 onwards Mead, at this stage an opening batsman, advanced very rapidly, with his average reaching 39 in the very wet summer of 1909. In 1911, he moved down the order to his familiar position of number four, and so successful was this move that he was the leading run-scorer in 1911 and 1913, and toured Australia in 1911/1912 and South Africa in 1913/1914. He was not nearly so successful as might have been expected in Australia, but in South Africa he hit a Test century and played particularly well throughout.

After World War I halted county cricket, Mead's list of achievements grew, as his always-remarkable watchfulness and superb footwork made him the complete master of bowlers such as Tich Freeman who were deadly against batsmen of poorer technique. In 1921, after missing the first three Tests against Australia, Mead hit 182 not out at The Oval in the last Test - a record score against Australia in England until Len Hutton hit 364 on the same ground in 1938 - showing that England seriously erred in not choosing him for the earlier games when Jack Gregory and Ted McDonald had a complete mastery over their batsmen. He also hit his highest score of 280 not out that year against Nottinghamshire. Hampshire, remarkably, lost the match as they had been bowled out cheaply on a good wicket in their first innings! World War I was primarily a European conflict with many facets: immense human sacrifice, stalemate trench warfare, and the use of new, devastating weapons - tanks, aircraft, machineguns, and poison gas. ... Tich Freeman (Alfred Percy Freeman; born May 17, 1888; died January 28, 1965) was a Kent leg spin bowler and the only man to take 300 wickets in an English season. ... Test cricket is the longest form of the sport of cricket. ... The famous gasholders, which are now listed buildings. ... For more coverage of cricket, go to the Cricket portal. ...

Between 1922 and 1928, Mead was consistently one of the top batsmen in county cricket, but England's remarkable batting strength - with men like Herbert Sutcliffe, Wally Hammond, Jack Hobbs and Frank Woolley - meant Mead had few opportunities at Test level. After scoring over 3000 runs in 1928, Mead toured Australia for the second time, but was dropped after one Test so as to make room for another bowler. 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. ... Walter Reginald Hammond (June 19, 1903 - July 1, 1965), often known as Wally Hammond, was an English cricketer, who played for Gloucestershire and England, primarily as a batsman, in a career that straddled (and was disrupted by) the Second World War. ... 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. ... Frank Edward Woolley (27 May 1887 - 18 October 1978) was an English cricketer, one of the finest all-rounders the game has seen. ...

In 1929, affected by injury, Mead declined substantially, failing to reach 2000 runs for the first time since the war. However, despite no longer being in the front rank of English batsmen, Mead was still feared for his great technical skill and reached a thousand runs every year until, at the age of forty-nine in 1936, he was not re-engaged by Hampshire. In his last innings, Mead played a superbly skillful 52 against Hedley Verity on a badly wearing wicket, and he played for Suffolk in the Minor Counties Championship with considerable success in 1938 and 1939. Hedley Verity (18 May 1905 - 31 July 1943) was an England cricketer. ...

Soon after World War II, Mead became totally blind, but he retained a great interest in cricket and often attended Hampshire matches right up to his death on March 26, 1958. World War II was a truly global conflict with many facets: immense human suffering, fierce indoctrinations, and the use of new, extremely devastating weapons like the atom bomb World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a mid-20th-century conflict that engulfed much of the globe... Blindness can be defined physiologically as the condition of lacking visual perception. ... March 26 is the 85th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (86th in leap years). ... 1958 was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

External links

• Test batting record
• First-class batting record
• Cricinfo page on Phil Mead