Hesketh Hesketh-Prichard, the amateur fast bowler, big-game hunter and Country Life writer, spent the 1910s in a near-evangelical public campaign to revive English fast bowling — arguing that the game was being dominated by spin and slow bowlers and that England would lose Tests until it produced new pacemen.
Hesketh-Prichard had played for Hampshire from the 1900s and was a Country Life writer of substantial fame.
His 1910s articles increasingly focused on the lack of English fast bowlers. Foster's emergence in 1911-12 he greeted enthusiastically; his accident in 1915 he treated as a national tragedy.
Hesketh-Prichard was one of the most extraordinary characters of his cricketing generation: an amateur fast bowler good enough to play for Hampshire and the MCC, an explorer who had ranged the Patagonian and Newfoundland wildernesses, a published novelist and a Country Life columnist. Through the 1910s he campaigned in print and at MCC committee meetings for an English fast-bowling revival. His articles argued that pre-war English Test sides relied too heavily on slow and slow-medium bowlers — Rhodes, Blythe, Barnes — and would be vulnerable on hard wickets without a genuine quick. The argument had merit; Cotter and Macdonald (later) gave Australia an attacking edge English county sides could not match. During the war Hesketh-Prichard served as a sniping officer on the Western Front and pioneered the British Army's sniping training school — perhaps the most direct application of fast-bowling skills to military use of any cricketer. He died of an infection in 1922 at 45, the campaign for fast-bowling revival incomplete.
Pre-1910: Hampshire fast bowler and writer
1910s: Public campaign for English fast bowling revival
1914-18: Pioneers British Army sniping training
1922: Dies of an infection at 45
1900s
Hampshire fast bowler
1910s
Public campaign for fast-bowling revival
1914-18
Sniping training school in the army
“England will not win Test matches without fast bowlers.”
His campaign was vindicated in the inter-war years as English pace declined and Australia's Larwood-Voce era forced the issue. Bodyline (1932-33) is in some sense the late echo of Hesketh-Prichard's argument.
An amateur fast bowler whose 1910s public campaign for English pace bowling foreshadowed every English-cricket debate of the next century.
Hesketh-Prichard is one of the small group of English cricket writer-evangelists — alongside Cardus and Robertson-Glasgow — who shaped how the country thought about the game in the early 20th century.
Bangladesh vs ICC
7 February 2026
Bangladesh refused to play T20 World Cup 2026 in India and were replaced by Scotland after the ICC rejected their security-concern relocation demand.
South Africa, West Indies, England
10 March 2026
South Africa and West Indies stranded in India 8-11 days after T20 WC 2026 while England departed in 48 hours, sparking ICC bias claims.
Punjab Kings
7 May 2026
Yuzvendra Chahal was allegedly captured vaping aboard a Punjab Kings team charter flight en route to Hyderabad ahead of the franchise's IPL 2026 match against Sunrisers Hyderabad on 6 May 2026. The footage surfaced from a behind-the-scenes vlog uploaded to social media by Chahal's PBKS teammate Arshdeep Singh, in which a figure appearing to be Chahal is visible with what observers identified as an electronic cigarette. The clip went viral within hours. Neither Chahal nor Arshdeep issued a public statement; Punjab Kings and the BCCI both remained silent. The controversy arrived just days after the BCCI had formally penalised Rajasthan Royals batter Riyan Parag for vaping in the team dressing room — and before the board had yet issued its blanket vaping ban for IPL venues.