Horace Fisher

Wisden obituary
Horace Fisher, a left-arm slow bowler who played intermittently for Yorkshire 1928-1936, died on April 16, aged 70. He was unlucky to be challenging Hedley Verity for a place in the side and mostly he played when Verity was on Test duty. Nevertheless, he claimed 93 first-class wickets at a cost of 27.5 runs apiece, was a useful batsman, and a very good close-to-the-wicket fieldsman. He was a careful man. He counted his pennies as carefully as the runs hit off his bowling. He liked maiden overs and, using a low trajectory, bowling just short of a length, he was a most successful League professional. Had he encouraged batsmen to get on the front foot and given the ball more air he would undoubtedly have been in the mould of Rhodes and Verity ... and the other great left-handers who, for 75 years prior to the Second World War, formed the hub on which Yorkshire cricket revolved. But Fisher had great moments in the county game. He was the first bowler to register a hat-trick of lbw victims when he took five wickets for 12 runs against Somerset at Sheffield in August 1932. It gave rise to one of the truly great `cricket' stories, too, when umpire Alex Skelding, after giving Mitchell-Innes and Andrews out lbw, stared up the wicket at batsman Luckes when the third appeal was made, and finally-almost in disbelief-announced, `As God's my judge, that's out, too.' He lifted his finger. Earlier in that same week Fisher had six wickets for 11 runs against Leicestershire at Bradford. He would have done well in the modern game.
The Cricketer, June 1974