Gerry Tordoff - Somerset Captain

Somerset Captain

Somerset finished bottom of the County Championship in both 1953 and 1954, and the captain, Ben Brocklehurst, later owner and publisher of The Cricketer, resigned. Somerset approached the Navy to allow Tordoff leave of absence to captain the side for the 1955 season.

The move was not a success, Somerset ending up at the bottom yet again, for the fourth consecutive season, despite winning four matches, double the number of each of the previous three seasons. Wisden noted that Tordoff "stood little chance of bringing a transformation in the fortunes of the club". It added: "From the beginning Tordoff found his batting order a jig-saw puzzle without the right men to fit the holes."

The Somerset county historian and journalist David Foot wrote: "He was a personable rather than an astute captain. Some of the committee found him a rather too convenient scapegoat. A former player said: 'It was hard to see who was around to take over from Ben (Brocklehurst). Gerry was a goodish player but he still had a bad side around him. It was terribly unjust that he should have been blamed as much as he was'."

Personally, Tordoff had a mediocre batting season: he scored 1,196 runs, more than in any other season in his career, but his average of 22.56 runs per innings was low. He scored just one century, an unbeaten 145 in the match against Gloucestershire at Taunton, but he achieved his only representative cricket, being selected for the Gentlemen in the annual Gentlemen v Players match at Lord's, where he made 20 and 44.

At the end of the 1955 season, Tordoff resigned from the captaincy, to be replaced by Somerset's first professional captain, Maurice Tremlett. Tordoff returned to the Navy, and never played for Somerset again.