Bill Greswell
Encyclopedia
William Territt Greswell, born at Cuddalore
, Madras, India
on 15 October 1889 and died at Bicknoller
, Somerset
, England
on 12 February 1971, played first-class
cricket
for Somerset
from 1908 to 1930. But his career as a tea-planter with the family company in Sri Lanka
meant that he appeared in only 115 first-class matches for the county in that period, and was a regular player in only five seasons, dotted over almost 20 years.
in the early days."
The allusion to "googly" was, according to Greswell himself, quite wrong. "I never spun a ball in my life," he wrote in 1965. "I turned the hand very slightly from right to left for the purpose of imparting the absolute minimum rotation, so that the air drift from left was deflected with maximum effect off the smooth cover of the ball onto the ridge of the seam which acted as a sail of a ship." The effect was to give his bowling a pronounced swerve into a right-handed batsman, as well as movement off the pitch. This was noticed early in Greswell's career by the Test player, Len Braund
, who advised a "leg-trap" field in which he himself fielded at short leg or leg slip. Later in Greswell's Somerset career, George Hunt took this position and made many catches off Greswell's bowling.
where he played in the school team captained by Harry Altham
, he first played for Somerset as an eighteen-year-old in 1908, recruited by the team's new captain, John Daniell
, himself a member of a tea-planter family, and following his older brother, Ernest Greswell
, who had played occasional matches for Somerset since 1903.
In his second match, opening the bowling for Somerset, Bill Greswell took seven Hampshire
wickets for just 42 runs in the second innings of the match at Southampton
. And he followed that up two matches later with seven for 67 against Yorkshire
at Taunton.
In 1909, Greswell played in all 16 of Somerset's County Championship
matches, plus the game against the Australians
. He also appeared in amateur sides put together by H. D. G. Leveson Gower against both Oxford
and Cambridge
Universities, and in an end-of-season Gentlemen v Players
match at Scarborough
. In the season as a whole he took 94 wickets at an average
of 22.10 runs per wicket. "Wiseacres, sprawled in their canvas chairs in front of the Stragglers Bar at Taunton, stroked leathery faces and said he would walk into the England team," says one account of that first full season. What made Greswell's bowling different was the very late movement that he achieved off the pitch. Bowling at "deceptively languid medium pace", he also used a lot of swing: "He could exploit the element of surprise without appearing to try. He could knock over leg stumps and orchestrate dolly catches to short leg." The possibility of a call-up to the England Test
side was not fanciful: in the Somerset match against the Australians at Bath, he took four Australian wickets for 11 runs in 13 overs, and the Australians, set just 68 to win the match, scraped home with only two wickets to spare. And the England selectors in 1909 were not averse to experimentation: later in the season, they picked Douglas Carr
, another novelty bowler also in his first season of full-time cricket. Greswell did particularly well in two of the season's more visible matches. For Leveson Gower's team against Cambridge University at Eastbourne, he took six for 108 in the first innings and seven for 62 in the second: this was his first 10-wicket match (13/170), though this was a 12-a-side game (but still regarded as first-class). Then, in Somerset's match against Middlesex
at Lord's, he took three for 59 and six for 96, and also hit exactly 100 in 75 minutes – the only century of his career.
At the end of the 1909 cricket season, Greswell left England for Sri Lanka, then called Ceylon, where he managed some of his family's business interests in tea plantations and assisted in the tea broking business in Colombo. Over the next 20 years, he played a lot of cricket in Sri Lanka for teams that would now be regarded as first-class: "His record as a bowler was by local standards phenomenal. He was the first European to take one thousand wickets... Several times he captured all ten wickets in an innings... In 1911 alone, Greswell took 232 wickets, unquestionably a record for Ceylon in those days. One might reasonably wonder how much time was devoted to tea-planting and office matters."
Greswell returned to England for the whole of the 1912 cricket season, the first since 1909 to have Test matches. But although he produced the best season's figures of his career, with 132 wickets at an average of 17.78 and 16 separate incidents of five wickets or more in an innings, he was not picked for any of the Tests in the Triangular Tournament
with Australia
and South Africa
. Aside from Somerset matches, he again played for H. D. G. Leveson Gower's XI, and was picked for two Gentlemen v Players games, at The Oval
and Lord's. He took 10 wickets or more in a match five times across the season, one of those being for the Free Foresters amateur team against Oxford University. For Somerset against Derbyshire
at Derby, he took eight for 65 in Derbyshire's first innings, his best innings figures. But at the end of the season he returned to Sri Lanka and he did not play first-class cricket again for almost 10 years.
(Gas Brigade) and was mentioned in despatches for "gallant and distinguished service in the field" just before the war ended in 1918.
team to play in a one-day match against the England team
that was heading for an Ashes
drubbing in Australia. He took the first four wickets to fall as the England side held on for a draw. In a letter, Greswell wrote: "Douglas
(the England captain) repeatedly asked me when I was coming back to England and said I would get into the England side if I did."
Greswell did return for the 1922 English season and again played in most of the Somerset matches. He was, though, "hampered early in the season by a damaged finger and did not prove quite so helpful as had been hoped". Even so, he took 86 first-class wickets with a best return of seven for 42 in the match against Warwickshire
at Birmingham
. He also had the best batting and fielding returns of his career, with 587 runs in the season at an average
of 18.34, two scores of more than 50, and 29 catches in 21 games. But there were no Tests in 1922 and nor was he selected for the 1922-23 tour of South Africa. He went back to Sri Lanka at the end of the season.
Greswell's next appearance in important cricket was for Ceylon, again in a one-day match with an England side on its way to Australia. The 1924-25 team
's stopover in Colombo was no more comfortable than their predecessors in 1920 had been: a virtually full Test side was dismissed for a total of 73, and Greswell took eight wickets for 38 runs.
Greswell was in England again during the 1925 season, but this time he played little cricket, turning out for Somerset in only seven matches and also making three appearances for MCC
. In these 10 matches, he took 32 wickets. Back in Sri Lanka the following winter, he finally made a first-class cricket appearance there in the match between a touring side from India and a scratch team
from Sri Lanka. And the following winter, he made a second single first-class appearance, this time as a member of a "Europeans in the East" side which played a game at Kolkata
against the MCC side that toured India in 1926-27. Despite his long years as an expatriate, these were the only two first-class matches that Greswell played in outside the United Kingdom.
From 1927, Greswell was back permanently in the UK to live, and the 1927 and 1928 cricket seasons are the only two consecutive seasons in his entire cricket career in which he played regular first-class cricket. In 1927, said Wisden
, he "seemed just as good as when last in England, his swerve and accurate length invariably troubling batsmen, especially when a new ball was in use". In the season as a whole, he took 77 wickets at an average of 20.64. His best figures of the season came in a match against a very weak Worcestershire
side at Stourbridge
: he bowled 43.3 overs in the match and took 10 wickets for 43 runs as Somerset won by an innings despite making only 178.
Greswell's figures for the 1928 season were similar to 1927 – 71 wickets, but with the rather higher average of 27.43. There was one spectacular day of success for him at Weston-super-Mare
: helped by five catches from George Hunt in the leg-side trap, Greswell took nine Hampshire wickets for 62 runs, the best innings analysis of his long career. That was, however, the last big performance. Wisden recorded in its Somerset notes in 1929: "It is a matter for much regret that in future Greswell will not be able to render Somerset anything like as much assistance as he did last year."
In fact, he played just twice more for Somerset, both times in the 1930 season, though he appeared in a few other first class matches for amateur teams in 1929, 1930 and 1933.
that was linked to difficulties in a rubber industry concern. After a second breakdown following service with the Home Guard in the Second World War, he became one of the early pioneers to undergo electro-convulsive therapy (ECT). He had by this time retired to Bicknoller in west Somerset, whose most famous resident was another Somerset cricketer, Harold Gimblett
, who similarly suffered from depressive illness and underwent ECT.
In later life, he was a member of Williton Rural District Council and he also served on Somerset County Cricket Club committees, becoming chairman. He was married twice.
Cuddalore
Cuddalore is a fast growing industrial city and headquarter of Cuddalore district in the Tamil Nadu state of southern India. Located south of Pondicherry on the coast of Bay of Bengal, Cuddalore has a large number of industries which employ a great deal of the city's population.Cuddalore is known...
, Madras, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
on 15 October 1889 and died at Bicknoller
Bicknoller
Bicknoller is a village and civil parish on the western slopes of the Quantock Hills in the English county of Somerset.Administratively, the civil parish falls within the West Somerset local government district within the Somerset shire county, with administrative tasks shared between county,...
, Somerset
Somerset
The ceremonial and non-metropolitan county of Somerset in South West England borders Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west. It is partly bounded to the north and west by the Bristol Channel and the estuary of the...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
on 12 February 1971, played first-class
First-class cricket
First-class cricket is a class of cricket that consists of matches of three or more days' scheduled duration, that are between two sides of eleven players and are officially adjudged first-class by virtue of the standard of the competing teams...
cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
for Somerset
Somerset County Cricket Club
Somerset County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Somerset...
from 1908 to 1930. But his career as a tea-planter with the family company in Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
meant that he appeared in only 115 first-class matches for the county in that period, and was a regular player in only five seasons, dotted over almost 20 years.
Cricket style
Bill Greswell was a bowler of medium-paced right-arm in-swingers, and a right-handed batsman who batted mostly in the lower order. He was mainly a bowler, and was regarded throughout his career as an unusual player for the late movement that he achieved off the pitch. "Cricket's cognoscenti talked and wrote about him in the context of innovative in-swing," says one account. "There were mutterings about his so-called quickish off-breaks. We even read of his apparent ability to bowl the googlyGoogly
In cricket, a googly is a type of delivery bowled by a right-arm leg spin bowler. It is occasionally referred to as a Bosie , an eponym in honour of its inventor Bernard Bosanquet.- Explanation :...
in the early days."
The allusion to "googly" was, according to Greswell himself, quite wrong. "I never spun a ball in my life," he wrote in 1965. "I turned the hand very slightly from right to left for the purpose of imparting the absolute minimum rotation, so that the air drift from left was deflected with maximum effect off the smooth cover of the ball onto the ridge of the seam which acted as a sail of a ship." The effect was to give his bowling a pronounced swerve into a right-handed batsman, as well as movement off the pitch. This was noticed early in Greswell's career by the Test player, Len Braund
Len Braund
Leonard Charles Braund, born October 18, 1875, at Clewer, Berkshire, and died December 23, 1955, Putney Common, London, was a cricketer who played for Surrey, Somerset and England....
, who advised a "leg-trap" field in which he himself fielded at short leg or leg slip. Later in Greswell's Somerset career, George Hunt took this position and made many catches off Greswell's bowling.
Early career
Educated at Repton SchoolRepton School
Repton School, founded in 1557, is a co-educational English independent school for both day and boarding pupils, in the British public school tradition, located in the village of Repton, in Derbyshire, in the Midlands area of England...
where he played in the school team captained by Harry Altham
Harry Altham
Harry Surtees Altham, CBE, DSO, MC was an English cricketer who became an important figure in the game as an administrator, historian and coach. His Wisden obituary described him as "among the best known personalities in the world of cricket"...
, he first played for Somerset as an eighteen-year-old in 1908, recruited by the team's new captain, John Daniell
John Daniell (cricketer)
John Daniell, was an international rugby union player for England and a first-class cricketer for Somerset and Cambridge University Cricket Club....
, himself a member of a tea-planter family, and following his older brother, Ernest Greswell
Ernest Greswell
Ernest Arthur Greswell, born at Cuddalore, Madras, India on 8 June 1885 and died at Minehead, Somerset, England on 15 January 1962, played first-class cricket for Somerset in 12 matches between 1903 and 1910....
, who had played occasional matches for Somerset since 1903.
In his second match, opening the bowling for Somerset, Bill Greswell took seven Hampshire
Hampshire County Cricket Club
Hampshire County Cricket Club represents the historic county of Hampshire in cricket's County Championship. The club was founded in 1863 as a successor to the Hampshire county cricket teams and has played at the Antelope Ground from then until 1885, before moving to the County Ground where it...
wickets for just 42 runs in the second innings of the match at Southampton
County Ground, Southampton
The County Ground in Southampton, England was a former cricket and football ground. It was the home of Hampshire County Cricket Club from the 1885 English cricket season until the 2000 English cricket season...
. And he followed that up two matches later with seven for 67 against Yorkshire
Yorkshire County Cricket Club
Yorkshire County Cricket Club represents the historic county of Yorkshire as one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure....
at Taunton.
In 1909, Greswell played in all 16 of Somerset's County Championship
County Championship
The County Championship is the domestic first-class cricket competition in England and Wales...
matches, plus the game against the Australians
Australian cricket team in England in 1909
The Australian cricket team in England in 1909 played 37 first-class matches including 5 Tests.Australia was captained by Monty Noble. England's captain in the first three Tests was Frederick Fane...
. He also appeared in amateur sides put together by H. D. G. Leveson Gower against both Oxford
Oxford University Cricket Club
Oxford University Cricket Club is a first-class cricket team, representing the University of Oxford. It plays its home games at the University Parks in Oxford, England...
and Cambridge
Cambridge University Cricket Club
Cambridge University Cricket Club is a first-class cricket team. It now plays all but one of its first-class cricket matches as part of the Cambridge University Centre of Cricketing Excellence , which includes Anglia Ruskin University...
Universities, and in an end-of-season Gentlemen v Players
Gentlemen v Players
The Gentlemen v Players game was a first-class cricket match that was generally played on an annual basis between one team consisting of amateurs and one of professionals . The first two games took place in 1806 but the fixture was not revived until 1819. It was more or less annual thereafter...
match at Scarborough
Scarborough Festival
The Scarborough Festival is an end of season series of cricket matches featuring Yorkshire County Cricket Club which has been held in Scarborough, on the east coast of Yorkshire, since 1876. The ground, at North Marine Road, sees large crowds of holiday makers watching a mixture of first class...
. In the season as a whole he took 94 wickets at an average
Bowling average
Bowling average is a statistic measuring the performance of bowlers in the sport of cricket.A bowler's bowling average is defined as the total number of runs conceded by the bowlers divided by the number of wickets taken by the bowler, so the lower the average the better. It is similar to earned...
of 22.10 runs per wicket. "Wiseacres, sprawled in their canvas chairs in front of the Stragglers Bar at Taunton, stroked leathery faces and said he would walk into the England team," says one account of that first full season. What made Greswell's bowling different was the very late movement that he achieved off the pitch. Bowling at "deceptively languid medium pace", he also used a lot of swing: "He could exploit the element of surprise without appearing to try. He could knock over leg stumps and orchestrate dolly catches to short leg." The possibility of a call-up to the England Test
Test cricket
Test cricket is the longest form of the sport of cricket. Test matches are played between national representative teams with "Test status", as determined by the International Cricket Council , with four innings played between two teams of 11 players over a period of up to a maximum five days...
side was not fanciful: in the Somerset match against the Australians at Bath, he took four Australian wickets for 11 runs in 13 overs, and the Australians, set just 68 to win the match, scraped home with only two wickets to spare. And the England selectors in 1909 were not averse to experimentation: later in the season, they picked Douglas Carr
Douglas Carr
Douglas Ward Carr was an English amateur cricketer.Carr went to Brasenose College at Oxford University and while there played both football and cricket...
, another novelty bowler also in his first season of full-time cricket. Greswell did particularly well in two of the season's more visible matches. For Leveson Gower's team against Cambridge University at Eastbourne, he took six for 108 in the first innings and seven for 62 in the second: this was his first 10-wicket match (13/170), though this was a 12-a-side game (but still regarded as first-class). Then, in Somerset's match against Middlesex
Middlesex County Cricket Club
Middlesex County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Middlesex. It was announced in February 2009 that Middlesex changed their limited overs name from the Middlesex Crusaders, to the...
at Lord's, he took three for 59 and six for 96, and also hit exactly 100 in 75 minutes – the only century of his career.
At the end of the 1909 cricket season, Greswell left England for Sri Lanka, then called Ceylon, where he managed some of his family's business interests in tea plantations and assisted in the tea broking business in Colombo. Over the next 20 years, he played a lot of cricket in Sri Lanka for teams that would now be regarded as first-class: "His record as a bowler was by local standards phenomenal. He was the first European to take one thousand wickets... Several times he captured all ten wickets in an innings... In 1911 alone, Greswell took 232 wickets, unquestionably a record for Ceylon in those days. One might reasonably wonder how much time was devoted to tea-planting and office matters."
Greswell returned to England for the whole of the 1912 cricket season, the first since 1909 to have Test matches. But although he produced the best season's figures of his career, with 132 wickets at an average of 17.78 and 16 separate incidents of five wickets or more in an innings, he was not picked for any of the Tests in the Triangular Tournament
1912 Triangular Tournament
The 1912 Triangular Tournament was a Test cricket competition played between Australia, England and South Africa, the only Test-playing nations at the time....
with Australia
Australian cricket team
The Australian cricket team is the national cricket team of Australia. It is the joint oldest team in Test cricket, having played in the first Test match in 1877...
and South Africa
South African cricket team
The South African national cricket team represent South Africa in international cricket. They are administrated by Cricket South Africa.South Africa is a full member of the International Cricket Council, also known as ICC, with Test and One Day International, or ODI, status...
. Aside from Somerset matches, he again played for H. D. G. Leveson Gower's XI, and was picked for two Gentlemen v Players games, at The Oval
The Oval
The Kia Oval, still commonly referred to by its original name of The Oval, is an international cricket ground in Kennington, in the London Borough of Lambeth. In the past it was also sometimes called the Kennington Oval...
and Lord's. He took 10 wickets or more in a match five times across the season, one of those being for the Free Foresters amateur team against Oxford University. For Somerset against Derbyshire
Derbyshire County Cricket Club
Derbyshire County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the England and Wales domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Derbyshire...
at Derby, he took eight for 65 in Derbyshire's first innings, his best innings figures. But at the end of the season he returned to Sri Lanka and he did not play first-class cricket again for almost 10 years.
First World War
Greswell served as an officer in the Somerset Light Infantry in the First World War, reaching the rank of major. He was seconded to the Royal EngineersRoyal Engineers
The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually just called the Royal Engineers , and commonly known as the Sappers, is one of the corps of the British Army....
(Gas Brigade) and was mentioned in despatches for "gallant and distinguished service in the field" just before the war ended in 1918.
Post-war cricket
Greswell returned to Sri Lanka after war service and resumed his non-first-class cricket career there. In October 1920, he was picked for the CeylonSri Lankan cricket team
The Sri Lankan cricket team is the national cricket team of Sri Lanka. The team first played international cricket in 1926–27, and were later awarded Test status in 1981, which made Sri Lanka the eighth Test cricket playing nation...
team to play in a one-day match against the England team
English cricket team in Australia in 1920-21
An England team toured Australia between November 1920 and March 1921. The tour was organised by the Marylebone Cricket Club and matches outside the Tests were played under the MCC name...
that was heading for an Ashes
The Ashes
The Ashes is a Test cricket series played between England and Australia. It is one of the most celebrated rivalries in international cricket and dates back to 1882. It is currently played biennially, alternately in the United Kingdom and Australia. Cricket being a summer sport, and the venues...
drubbing in Australia. He took the first four wickets to fall as the England side held on for a draw. In a letter, Greswell wrote: "Douglas
Johnny Douglas
John "Johnny" William Henry Tyler Douglas was a cricketer who was captain of the England team and an Olympic boxer.-Early life:...
(the England captain) repeatedly asked me when I was coming back to England and said I would get into the England side if I did."
Greswell did return for the 1922 English season and again played in most of the Somerset matches. He was, though, "hampered early in the season by a damaged finger and did not prove quite so helpful as had been hoped". Even so, he took 86 first-class wickets with a best return of seven for 42 in the match against Warwickshire
Warwickshire County Cricket Club
Warwickshire County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Warwickshire. Its limited overs team is called the Warwickshire Bears. Their kit colours are black and gold and the shirt sponsor...
at Birmingham
Edgbaston Cricket Ground
Edgbaston Cricket Ground, also known as the County Ground or Edgbaston Stadium, is a cricket ground in the Edgbaston area of Birmingham, England...
. He also had the best batting and fielding returns of his career, with 587 runs in the season at an average
Batting average
Batting average is a statistic in both cricket and baseball that measures the performance of cricket batsmen and baseball hitters. The two statistics are related in that baseball averages are directly descended from the concept of cricket averages.- Cricket :...
of 18.34, two scores of more than 50, and 29 catches in 21 games. But there were no Tests in 1922 and nor was he selected for the 1922-23 tour of South Africa. He went back to Sri Lanka at the end of the season.
Greswell's next appearance in important cricket was for Ceylon, again in a one-day match with an England side on its way to Australia. The 1924-25 team
English cricket team in Australia in 1924-25
Marylebone Cricket Club organised the England cricket team's tour of Australia in the 1924-25 season. Australia won the Ashes series 4-1.-Results:* 1st Test — * 2nd Test — * 3rd Test —...
's stopover in Colombo was no more comfortable than their predecessors in 1920 had been: a virtually full Test side was dismissed for a total of 73, and Greswell took eight wickets for 38 runs.
Greswell was in England again during the 1925 season, but this time he played little cricket, turning out for Somerset in only seven matches and also making three appearances for MCC
Marylebone Cricket Club
Marylebone Cricket Club is a cricket club in London founded in 1787. Its influence and longevity now witness it as a private members' club dedicated to the development of cricket. It owns, and is based at, Lord's Cricket Ground in St John's Wood, London NW8. MCC was formerly the governing body of...
. In these 10 matches, he took 32 wickets. Back in Sri Lanka the following winter, he finally made a first-class cricket appearance there in the match between a touring side from India and a scratch team
Scratch team
A scratch team is a team, usually in sport, brought together on a temporary basis, composed of players who normally play for different sides. A game played between two scratch teams may be called a scratch match....
from Sri Lanka. And the following winter, he made a second single first-class appearance, this time as a member of a "Europeans in the East" side which played a game at Kolkata
Eden Gardens
Eden Gardens is a cricket ground in Kolkata , India. It is the home of the Bengal cricket team and the Indian Premier League's Kolkata Knight Riders, as well as being a Test and One Day International ground. It is the largest cricket stadium in India by seating capacity...
against the MCC side that toured India in 1926-27. Despite his long years as an expatriate, these were the only two first-class matches that Greswell played in outside the United Kingdom.
From 1927, Greswell was back permanently in the UK to live, and the 1927 and 1928 cricket seasons are the only two consecutive seasons in his entire cricket career in which he played regular first-class cricket. In 1927, said Wisden
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom...
, he "seemed just as good as when last in England, his swerve and accurate length invariably troubling batsmen, especially when a new ball was in use". In the season as a whole, he took 77 wickets at an average of 20.64. His best figures of the season came in a match against a very weak Worcestershire
Worcestershire County Cricket Club
Worcestershire County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Worcestershire...
side at Stourbridge
Amblecote
Amblecote is an urban village in the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley in the West Midlands, England. It lies immediately north of the historic town of Stourbridge, extending about one and a half miles from it. As such, it is on the southwestern edge of the West Midlands urban area...
: he bowled 43.3 overs in the match and took 10 wickets for 43 runs as Somerset won by an innings despite making only 178.
Greswell's figures for the 1928 season were similar to 1927 – 71 wickets, but with the rather higher average of 27.43. There was one spectacular day of success for him at Weston-super-Mare
Clarence Park, Weston-super-Mare
Clarence Park was given to the town of Weston-super-Mare by Rebecca Davies in memory of her husband. The cricket pavilion at the park dates from 1882. A multitude of sports have been played at the park, including cricket. The ground is owned by the local council. It is currently used by...
: helped by five catches from George Hunt in the leg-side trap, Greswell took nine Hampshire wickets for 62 runs, the best innings analysis of his long career. That was, however, the last big performance. Wisden recorded in its Somerset notes in 1929: "It is a matter for much regret that in future Greswell will not be able to render Somerset anything like as much assistance as he did last year."
In fact, he played just twice more for Somerset, both times in the 1930 season, though he appeared in a few other first class matches for amateur teams in 1929, 1930 and 1933.
After cricket
Greswell retired from cricket to take charge of his business interests, but they did not run altogether smoothly. In 1931, he had a nervous breakdownNervous breakdown
Mental breakdown is a non-medical term used to describe an acute, time-limited phase of a specific disorder that presents primarily with features of depression or anxiety.-Definition:...
that was linked to difficulties in a rubber industry concern. After a second breakdown following service with the Home Guard in the Second World War, he became one of the early pioneers to undergo electro-convulsive therapy (ECT). He had by this time retired to Bicknoller in west Somerset, whose most famous resident was another Somerset cricketer, Harold Gimblett
Harold Gimblett
Harold Gimblett was a cricketer who played for Somerset and England. He was known for his fast scoring as an opening batsman and for the much-repeated story of his debut...
, who similarly suffered from depressive illness and underwent ECT.
In later life, he was a member of Williton Rural District Council and he also served on Somerset County Cricket Club committees, becoming chairman. He was married twice.