Bernard Bosanquet (cricketer) - Later Career

Later Career

After 1905, Bosanquet played fewer first-class matches owing to his business career, and appeared as a batsman rather than an all-rounder. He played rarely for Middlesex, but usually seemed to make runs despite his lack of practice. He played four matches in 1906. He scored 87 and 101 for Middlesex against Somerset in his first game and took five for 51 against Yorkshire in his second. His good form continued in his third match for Middlesex as he scored two fifties against Essex and he was chosen for the Gentlemen against the Players. Although he did not bowl in that match, he scored 56 in the first innings. In total, he scored 415 runs at 51.87 and took eight wickets at 46.00. The following season, he played six matches for Middlesex, took two wickets and scored 358 runs at 35.00 with three fifties. Bosanquet played more often in 1908. He made 1,081 runs at an average of 54.05, topping the first-class batting averages. He scored centuries for Middlesex against Somerset and Lancashire in addition to five fifties. He represented the Gentlemen v Players twice—at Lord's and in an end of season festival game—without reaching fifty. However, in two other festival games in September, Bosanquet scored a fifty for the South against the North and scored 214, the highest score of his career, for the Rest of England against Yorkshire, the County Champions. In the season, he also took 12 wickets at an average of 29.00, although only bowling more than 10 overs in an innings three times, the final wickets of his career.

Bosanquet did not appear in first-class cricket again until 1911 when he played two matches in the Scarborough Festival at the end of the season. During the first game, he scored a century in 75 minutes for the Gentlemen against the Players, who had an attack including Sydney Barnes. In 1912, he played for Middlesex against the Australians but did not bat or bowl, before appearing in three festival games in August and September. He played twice in 1913, hitting two fifties for L. Robinson's XI against Cambridge University and scoring a third fifty in a match at the end of the season, while in 1914 he appeared for Middlesex against Hampshire and for L. Robinson's XI against Oxford University. After the First World War, Bosanquet made seven appearances in the 1919 season, six of them for Middlesex, scoring three fifties in an aggregate of 335 runs (average 27.91). He did not appear again in first-class cricket. He ended his career with 11,696 runs at an average of 33.41 with 21 centuries. With the ball, he took 629 wickets at an average of 23.80. He continued to be successful in a good class of club cricket and in matches at country houses. His son later recalled how he "drifted from one country-house party to the next, tipping the butler on Monday morning, before travelling to his next social-cum-sporting invitation."