Full Name

Albert Frederick Wensley

Born

May 24, 1898, Brighton, Sussex

Died

June 17, 1970, Ware, Hertfordshire, (aged 72y 24d)

Batting Style

Right hand Bat

Bowling Style

Right arm Medium fast

Bert Wensley rendered excellent service to Sussex as a professional allrounder from 1922 to 1936. In that time he took with medium-pace bowling 1,135 wickets for 26.42 runs each and hit 10,735 runs, average 20.40. He achieved the cricketers' double in 1929 when scoring 1,057 runs and dismissing 113 batsmen. In each of four other years he took 100 wickets and against Middlesex at Lord's in 1935 he performed the hat-trick. The best bowling analysis of his career was nine Otago wickets for 36 runs at Auckland in 1929-30. In 1925 at Hove, he and M. W. Tate bowed unchanged through both Glamorgan innings. How economical Bert Wensley's bowling could be was illustrated by his figures against Derbyshire at Chesterfield in 1928: 32 overs, 20 maidens, 21 runs, 0 wicket.

In that season he made the highest of his five centuries, 140 against Glamorgan at Eastbourne. Three times he completed 1,000 runs in a summer for the county. Strong in driving and pulling, he hit 120 in 110 minutes against Derbyshire's at Horsham in 1930, when he and H. W. Parks, in putting on 178 for the ninth wicket, established a Sussex record which still stands. A very reliable fieldsman near the wicket, he twice held five catches in an innings and in the second innings of Warwickshire at Edgbaston in 1932 he had a hand in the dismissal of nine of the ten batsmen, returning bowling figures of six wickets for 73 runs.

Wensley's benefit match at Hove in 1936 came near to causing a cessation of fixtures with Nottinghamshire. With five minutes of the extra half hour remaining, Sussex went in to get nine runs to win. They scored seven from the first over. Then slight rain began and, after appealing to the umpires, G. F. H. Heane, the Nottinghamshire captain, led his players from the field, the game being left drawn.

On September 5 of that same year, 1936, Wensley and W. H. Ashdown played a match against XI of the Isle of Oxney before 2,000 spectators. They put out the eleven for 153 runs in 24.4 overs and then Ashdown and Wensley made 186 before Wensley was out for 96 leaving Ashdown 83 not out made in 36.4 overs. It commemorated the centenary of the match played by E. G. Wenman and Richard Mills of Benenden, Kent, who defeated eleven chosen players of the Isle of Oxney at Wittersham on September 4, 5, 1834.
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack

Bert Wensley Career Stats

Batting & Fielding

FormatMatInnsNORunsHSAve100s50sCtSt
FC400595641087515420.489422651

Bowling

FormatMatRunsWktsBBIAve5w10w
FC4003025111429/3626.485610

Debut/Last Matches of Bert Wensley

FC Matches

Span
1922 - 1947/48

Recent Matches of Bert Wensley

MatchBatBowlDateGroundFormat
Sussex vs Oxford Uni11 & 252/27 & 5/4526-Jun-1935WorthingFC
Sussex vs Cambridge U254/42 & 4/4101-May-1935CambridgeFC
Sussex vs Middlesex--2/53 & 0/4205-Aug-1933HoveFC
Sussex vs Cambridge U12/8417-Jun-1933HoveFC
Sussex vs Cambridge U8*1/11603-May-1933CambridgeFC