11 Facts About Billy Bestwick

William Bestwick was an English cricketer who played for Derbyshire between 1898 and 1926.

Billy Bestwick was a medium-fast bowler who took over 1,400 wickets in his career, including 10 in one innings.

Billy Bestwick was the son of a miner and started working at Coppice Pit at the age of 11.

Billy Bestwick debuted on the Derbyshire team in 1898, while still working in the mine in winter.

Billy Bestwick is one of only two bowlers to have hit ten wickets in a single innings for Derbyshire, which he achieved in June 1921; the other was five-time Test cricketer Tommy Mitchell.

Billy Bestwick never averaged above eight with the bat in a single season for Derbyshire and did not ever reach twenty in his last two hundred and eighty first-class innings, a run of batting failures equalled only by Eric Hollies between 1939 and 1954.

Billy Bestwick became an alcoholic after his wife left him in 1906, and this adversely affected his cricketing career.

In 1909, Billy Bestwick played in his final County Championship game for ten years.

Billy Bestwick was fired and went to South Wales, where he remarried and played for Glamorgan in the Minor Counties Championship in 1914.

In 1920, Billy Bestwick played just one game for the team.

Billy Bestwick became an umpire and umpired 238 first-class matches, including three Tests in 1929 and 1930, the last of which was played less than a year before he died.