H.D. ‘Hopper’ Read made a sensational impact as a fast bowler in the mid-1930s, not so much hopping as exploding on to the scene in his first match for Essex at Brentwood. The opposition were Surrey, for whom Jack Hobbs, then (in 1934) aged fifty-one, was making one of his last appearances. The story goes that Frank Woolley had told him the match offered a good opportunity of bringing his total of centuries (at 197) nearer the magic 200 mark. After all, in the previous match at Brentwood, Kent had declared at 803 for four.
But, faced with the responsibility of producing two three-day pitches on a club ‘square’, the groundsman had resorted to liquid manure. For the second match the mixture had not dried out. Read, bowling at a high pace, with a stiff wind at his back, removed Hobbs’s cap with his first ball, and bowled him with his sixth. Surrey were dismissed in an hour and a half for 115, Read finishing with seven wickets for 35 runs. Essex won by an innings and 192 runs – oddly enough the same margin by which Kent had beaten them in the first match of this inaugural ‘Week’ at Brentwood.
After that, Read played whenever he was available. In 1935 he and M.S. Nichols bowled out an all-conquering Yorkshire side for 31 and 99 to give Essex their first victory over the White Rose since 1911. Read went on to play for England, though he had failed to get into his school side.
With Larwood’s fast bowling days being over, Read in 1935 was rated the fastest bowler in England and the selectors, looking for victory to square the series, picked him for the fifth Test against South Africa. Read took six for 200 in the match and South Africa had little difficulty in achieving the draw that gave them success in the rubber. But his first-class career was brief: he toured Australia and New Zealand with M.C.C. that year and took eleven wickets for 100 runs in the first of four unofficial Tests. But on returning home he pursued his profession as an accountant.
Holcombe Douglas Read: b Woodford Green, Essex, 28 January 1910; d 5 January 2000