Maurice Tate's Reinvention — Off-Spinner to Fast-Medium, 1923

Tate's father, Fred Tate, had played one Test for England in 1902 and was famously held responsible for the loss of the Ashes that year (a missed catch and a duck). The son's Test career — and his transformation in 1922-23 — was widely understood as a redemption of the family name.

Maurice Tate had been a steady county off-spinner for Sussex since 1912, taking 50-80 wickets a season with no Test prospects. In 1922 his county captain Arthur Gilligan, watching him in the nets, suggested that his strong action and natural late swing would suit fast-medium bowling. Tate experimented through the second half of the 1922 county season, took 118 wickets, and began the 1923 season committed to the new style.

The 1923 season produced 219 wickets at 13.97 — the highest seasonal aggregate by an English bowler since Tom Richardson in the 1890s. Tate's late inswing, his ability to bowl long spells, and his accuracy made him the first true fast-medium swing bowler in English cricket. He was selected for England's home Test against South Africa at Edgbaston in June 1924, where with Gilligan he bowled the visitors out for 30 — Tate 4 for 12, Gilligan 6 for 7.

Tate played 39 Tests between 1924 and 1935, taking 155 wickets at 26.16, including 38 in the 1924-25 Ashes alone (a record at the time). His career haul was 2,784 first-class wickets at 18.16. The fast-medium swing style he pioneered became the model for Bedser, Trueman, Statham, Snow, Botham, Hoggard and Anderson — the entire post-1945 English bowling lineage.

“Maurice was an off-spinner who had a fast-medium bowler hidden inside him. I just told him to let the other man out.”

Tate became England's senior bowler from 1924 to 1930. His 38 wickets in the 1924-25 Ashes was the most by any bowler in an Ashes series until Jim Laker in 1956. He played his last Test in 1935 and finished with 155 Test wickets.