Phil Mead
Charles Phillip Mead was an English professional cricketer who played in seventeen Test matches for England and had an extensive domestic career with Hampshire in English county cricket, spanning 31 years. Mead was born in Battersea. Overlooked by Surrey, he joined Hampshire in 1903 and made his debut for the county in first-class cricket in 1905. He established himself in the Hampshire side as a left-handed batsman the following season. After passing 2,000 runs in a season for the first time in 1911, Mead was chosen as one of five Wisden Cricketers of the Year. He was subsequently selected to tour Australia in 1911–12, making his Test debut against Australia. After success in the 1912 season, he toured South Africa, scoring his first Test century during the tour. Mead's appearances at Test level were infrequent, spanning seventeen matches across five series between 1911 and 1928. He scored nearly 1,200 runs in Tests, making four centuries. The paucity of his appearances at Test level were attributed to hostility toward his status as a professional batsman by England captain Plum Warner, playing for an "unfashionable" county, and an abundance of strong batsmen in county cricket competing for limited spaces in the England team. Despite the end of his Test career in 1928, Mead continued to play first-class cricket until 1936, when he was released by Hampshire at the age of 49. He then played two seasons of minor counties cricket for Suffolk in 1938 and 1939, whilst employed as a cricket coach at Framlingham College.
Mead holds many batting records. He is the fourth-highest run-scorer in first-class cricket, having scored over 55,000 runs during his career. He holds the record for the most runs in the County Championship, while his 2,843 runs in the 1928 County Championship constitutes an all-time record for a single season. He also made 153 first-class centuries during his career, the fourth-highest number by a batsman. His number of runs for Hampshire is the greatest number any batsman has scored for a single first-class team. He also exceeded a thousand runs in every season of first-class cricket except his first – when he only played one match.
In later life, problems with his eyes which had begun in 1942 led to Mead becoming totally blind by August 1946. He retired to Bournemouth, where he died in hospital in March 1958, following an operation for internal bleeding.
Early life
Mead was born in at 10 Ashton Buildings in Battersea on 9 March 1887, the second eldest of seven children. His talents as a cricketer were first spotted as a schoolboy at Shillington Street School, scoring his first century as a ten-year-old while playing in the South London School League. He also played for the combined London Schools team. He was spotted playing in a school's match at The Oval by C. B. Fry, who encouraged him to pursue cricket as a profession. Mead joined the staff at Surrey in 1902, aged 15, primarily as a slow left-arm orthodox bowler. While trying to establish his career, he worked in a shop in the West End of London. Mead left Surrey in 1903 after he was not offered a contract at the end of that season, having been unable to force his way into the powerful Surrey team of the time.Cricket career
Early years at Hampshire
A fortnight after Mead was released, Surrey attempted to reverse their decision by offering him a contract. However, he had been to Hampshire for a trial and decided to sign a two-year contract with them; Fry assisted him in securing a contract by persuading one of Hampshire's financial backers, Charles Hoare, to provide him with a job whilst he undertook his two-year residency qualification to represent Hampshire in the County Championship. Hoare provided him with employment at his training establishment Mercury, where Mead coached naval trainees during his qualification period. Aged 17, he nearly made his debut in first-class cricket for the Players of the South against the Gentlemen of the South at Bournemouth, but his inclusion was vetoed by W. G. Grace who objected because of his age. He made his first-class debut for Hampshire in 1905, against the touring Australians at Southampton. He showed his skill against fast bowling in this match, particularly against that of Tibby Cotter, by scoring 41 runs.After qualifying in 1905, he immediately established himself in Hampshire's County Championship side in 1906. He opened the batting on his Championship debut against Surrey, but was dismissed for scores of 0 and 3. In the following match against Yorkshire, he batted from the middle order and scored his maiden first-class century, making 109 runs in Hampshire's second innings, having made 60 runs in their first. In his first full season, he passed a thousand runs for the season with 1,014 at an average of 26.68, and made a further century. His slow left-arm orthodox bowling was used by Hampshire in 1906, with Mead taking 22 wickets at a bowling average of 35.36, claiming his maiden five-wicket haul against Warwickshire. He began to regularly open the batting in 1907, alongside Alex Bowell. Mead scored 1,190 runs from 25 matches in 1907, but only managed to record a single century. He had his most successful season as a bowler in the 1907 season, taking 42 wickets at an average of 26.40, taking five wickets in an innings twice.
Mead played the same number of matches the following season, scoring 1,118 runs and making two centuries. He took a further 27 wickets at an average of 34.62, taking his career best figures of 7 for 18 against Northamptonshire, where bowling first change he helped to dismiss Northamptonshire for 60 runs in their second innings, with Hampshire winning the match by 9 wickets. In 1908, he played for a Hambledon XII in a commemorative first-class match against an England XI at Broadhalfpenny Down. Mead scored 1,459 runs at an average of 37.41 from 24 matches in the wet summer of 1909, in addition to taking 23 wickets at an average of 35.43; as his reputation as a batsman grew, he began to take his bowling less seriously and as a result, was used less. In 1910, he scored 1,416 runs at an average of 31.46, making one century. Three of his first-class matches came for teams besides Hampshire. He played for the Marylebone Cricket Club against Nottinghamshire at the beginning of the season, and for the East of England against the West of England in June, before being selected for The Rest against 1910 County Champions Kent at The Oval; in the latter match, he was described as having "batted brilliantly" by the Bournemouth Daily Echo.
Test debut
Mead was prolific during the 1911 season, having dropped down to the upper-middle order. He scored over 2,562 runs at an average of 54.51 from 29 matches, making nine centuries. Against Leicestershire in June, he scored two centuries in the same match, making 100 and an unbeaten 109 runs, in addition to scoring a maiden double-century, an unbeaten 207 runs against Warwickshire in August, with Mead sharing in a 292 runs partnership for the third wicket with Alexander Johnston. The following month, whilst playing for the Players in the Gentlemen versus Players match at the Scarborough Festival in September, he made a second double-century. He was Hampshire's leading run-scorer in the County Championship that season, with 1,706 runs at an average of 58.82. Overall, he ranked fourth behind Tom Hayward, Jack Sharp and David Denton, despite Mead having played at least ten fewer innings than them. Strengthened by his century for The Rest in the season ending match against County Champion's Warwickshire at The Oval, his form led him to be selected for the MCC's 1911–12 tour of Australia. Under the captaincy of Plum Warner, it was considered the strongest touring team that had been sent to Australia at the time. As a result of his performances in 1911, Mead was named one of Wisden's Five Cricketers of the Year.Having played in the five first-class matches against Australian state and representative sides that preceded the First Test, Mead made his Test debut for England against Australia at the Sydney Cricket Ground, being dismissed for a 16–ball duck by H. V. Hordern in his first Test innings. He played in all five Test matches, but had success only in the Third Test at Adelaide, where he shared in a partnership of 63 runs for the fifth wicket with Jack Hobbs, with Mead's contribution being 46 runs. Writing in The Cricketer in 1990, Peter Coulson considered Mead's contributions to England's 4–1 series victory to be "meagre", with John Arlott having written in 1980 that he was "one of the failures of a winning side". His best performance on the tour came in a first-class match against Tasmania, where he made a score of 98 runs. Following the series, in an anonymous letter to The Times, Warner was critical of Mead's batting. Warner's hostility toward Mead, which remained for the rest of his career, was attributed to Mead's status as a professional batsman, when traditionally it was amateurs that batted and professionals that bowled. The infrequency of his Test appearances thereafter has been attributed not only to Warner's hostility, but also to playing for a county perceived as "unfashionable", and having to compete with an abundance of strong batsmen for limited places in the Test team, notably Frank Woolley who was preferred over Mead.
Upon his return home, Mead had a successful season in 1912, scoring 1,933 runs at an average of 50.86 from 34 matches; he scored seven centuries during the season. His highest score of the season, an unbeaten 160, contributed to Hampshire's first-ever victory against the Australians at Southampton in July. In his first match of the season, Mead had played for The Rest against England in the Test trial match at The Oval in early May. He did not have success in the match, making scores of 1 and 17. Later in May, he played for the MCC against the Australians and for The Rest against the MCC Australian Touring Team, and despite his good form for Hampshire, he was not chosen to take part in the 1912 Triangular Tournament. Mead's success continued into the 1913 season, in which he scored 2,267 runs at an average of 50.51. In 32 first-class matches that season, he scored nine centuries. He again recorded two centuries against Leicestershire in the same match during the season, making scores of 102 and 113 not out at Southampton. In terms of runs scored in the 1913 County Championship, Mead was second behind Hobbs, whilst in overall first-class cricket he topped the national batting averages in that year. He was subsequently chosen for the winter tour of South Africa with the MCC, this time led by Johnny Douglas.
Mead played all five Test matches in the tour's itinerary, scoring a maiden Test century in the Second Test at Johannesburg, before following up with a second century in the Fifth Test at Port Elizabeth. In the series, which England won 4–0, Mead was said to have "scored solidly", scoring 745 runs in the sixteen tour matches, placing his aggregate third behind Hobbs and Douglas; in the Test matches, his average of exactly 54 was second to Hobbs' 63.28. In the 1914 season, which was truncated in August by the outbreak of the First World War, Mead and Hampshire had success. Playing in 31 first-class matches that season, he scored 2,476 runs at an average of 51.58, recording seven centuries. Against Yorkshire in May, he scored 213 runs and shared in a fifth wicket partnership of 170 runs with Gerald Harrison. Hampshire achieved a fifth-placed finish in the 1914 County Championship, their highest championship finish to that point, with Wisden describing Mead as 'a tower of strength' in the Hampshire batting order. With the MCC President Francis Lacey confirming the cessation of cricket during the war, first-class cricket in England was suspended until 1919. Having initially enlisted in September 1914 with the 5th Battalion, Hampshire Regiment, Mead was rejected from active service during the conflict because of varicose veins, along with other medical issues. During the war, he played for Frank Hopkins Hampshire Club and Ground team against a Royal Garrison Artillery team.