Stuart Rogers
Encyclopedia
Stuart Scott Rogers played first-class cricket
for Somerset
and captained the side from 1950 to 1952.
. A fair-haired right-handed middle-order batsman who sometimes opened the innings, Stuart Rogers was educated at Highgate School
and went to Cambridge University before joining the Chindits
during the Second World War. He played in the wartime university match against Oxford University in 1942.
After one first-class appearance in India in 1946-47, he joined Somerset as an amateur player in 1948, appearing in seven matches but making little impact. The following year, Rogers played 13 times, appearing in two periods of the season. In June, he made his first three 50s, with 54 against the New Zealanders
, 51 against Gloucestershire
and 61 against Hampshire
in successive matches. He was less successful in August, when the efforts of other amateurs helped Somerset to overcome the handicap of losing 15 out of 26 County Championship
matches, as many as any other county side, and finish joint ninth out of 17.
At the end of the 1949 season, George Woodhouse
, the Somerset captain, retired to the family brewery business
. Somerset, who had struggled through 1948 under a series of temporary captains, were not keen to repeat the experience. Rogers was the only available amateur willing to commit to a full season, and was duly appointed captain for 1950.
in its review. It went on: "The appointment of an inexperienced player to lead a side forced to make experiments seemed like a leap in the dark, but as the summer advanced deeds spoke louder than words and in the end an adventurous policy was fully justified."
Rogers' own contribution was 1030 Championship runs, 1127 in all matches, including his first century, 101, batting at No 7 against Northamptonshire
at Frome
. In this innings, he hit three sixes and nine fours, and shared a seventh wicket partnership of 182 with Harold Stephenson
; Rogers and Stephenson were responsible for several late-innings fast-scoring partnerships in Somerset matches in 1950.
Rogers' second season as Somerset captain, 1951, was more difficult than the first. The side was dependent for wickets on a trio of spin bowlers, Johnny Lawrence
, Ellis Robinson
and Horace Hazell
, with the last two both past 40. In 1950, runs had come from several team members: in 1951, Maurice Tremlett
made more than 2,000 and Harold Gimblett
1,400, but no one else apart from a couple of irregular amateurs averaged more than 20. Rogers made only 784 runs in Championship games with a top score of 58, although his season average and total was improved by an unbeaten 107 in 160 minutes against the South African touring team
. This was to prove his highest score in first-class cricket. With both batting and bowling inadequacies, Somerset fell back to 14th in the Championship, with only five victories and 15 defeats.
Worse followed in 1952. Gimblett made 2,000 runs, and the rest of the batting was marginally improved over 1951, but inability to take wickets at reasonable cost consigned the side to the bottom of the Championship table for the first time since 1913. Only two matches were won all season and, Wisden reported, "even these meagre successes were due as much to the spin of the coin as the turn of the ball. When Somerset won the toss in the Bath Festival they triumphed over Middlesex
and Warwickshire
and when they lost it they went under to Leicestershire
." Wisden noted too that morale was low: "General slackness, particularly in fielding, was Somerset's biggest handicap. Until the whole club develops a more enthusiastic spirit as portrayed by Gimblett, they will continue to disappoint their faithful supporters."
Rogers himself had a mediocre season: he made 841 runs in the Championship, with a third and final career century, an unbeaten 102 in Gimblett's benefit match
against Northamptonshire at Glastonbury
. At the end of the season he stood down from the captaincy, and though he appeared again in nine matches in 1953, he was not successful and left first-class cricket.
As was sometimes the custom of the 1950s, Rogers was nominally the secretary as well as the captain of Somerset, though the secretarial duties appear to have been undertaken by a succession of retired military gentlemen. The arrangement would have allowed Rogers to draw a salary while maintaining his amateur status.
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...
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...
and captained the side from 1950 to 1952.
Early career
Rogers was born at Muswell HillMuswell Hill
Muswell Hill is a suburb of north London, mostly in the London Borough of Haringey. It is situated about north of Charing Cross and around from the City of London. Muswell Hill is in the N10 postal district and mostly in the Hornsey and Wood Green parliamentary constituency.- History :The...
. A fair-haired right-handed middle-order batsman who sometimes opened the innings, Stuart Rogers was educated at Highgate School
Highgate School
-Notable members of staff and governing body:* John Ireton, brother of Henry Ireton, Cromwellian General* 1st Earl of Mansfield, Lord Chief Justice, owner of Kenwood, noted for judgment finding contracts for slavery unenforceable in English law* T. S...
and went to Cambridge University before joining the Chindits
Chindits
The Chindits were a British India "Special Force" that served in Burma and India in 1943 and 1944 during the Burma Campaign in World War II. They were formed into long range penetration groups trained to operate deep behind Japanese lines...
during the Second World War. He played in the wartime university match against Oxford University in 1942.
After one first-class appearance in India in 1946-47, he joined Somerset as an amateur player in 1948, appearing in seven matches but making little impact. The following year, Rogers played 13 times, appearing in two periods of the season. In June, he made his first three 50s, with 54 against the New Zealanders
New Zealand cricket team in England in 1949
The New Zealand cricket team toured England in the 1949 season. The team was the fourth official touring side from New Zealand, following those in 1927, 1931 and 1937, and was by some distance the most successful to this date...
, 51 against Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire County Cricket Club
Gloucestershire County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh national cricket structure, representing the historic county of Gloucestershire. Its limited overs team is called the Gloucestershire Gladiators....
and 61 against 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...
in successive matches. He was less successful in August, when the efforts of other amateurs helped Somerset to overcome the handicap of losing 15 out of 26 County Championship
County Championship
The County Championship is the domestic first-class cricket competition in England and Wales...
matches, as many as any other county side, and finish joint ninth out of 17.
At the end of the 1949 season, George Woodhouse
George Woodhouse
George Edward Sealy Woodhouse DL, born at Blandford Forum, Dorset, on 15 February 1924 and died also at Blandford on 19 January 1988, had two careers: one as a cricketer for Somerset and Dorset, the second as the chairman from 1962 to his death of the family brewing company Hall and Woodhouse...
, the Somerset captain, retired to the family brewery business
Hall & Woodhouse
Hall and Woodhouse is a British regional brewery founded in 1777 by Charles Hall in Blandford Forum, Dorset, UK. The company operates over 250 public houses in the south of England, and brews under the name Badger Brewery.-History:...
. Somerset, who had struggled through 1948 under a series of temporary captains, were not keen to repeat the experience. Rogers was the only available amateur willing to commit to a full season, and was duly appointed captain for 1950.
Somerset captain
Rogers captained Somerset for three seasons of mixed fortunes. The 1950 season saw the side finish equal seventh in the Championship, and eight victories were exceeded by only three teams. "Once more volatile Somerset falsified prophecies of a poor season," wrote WisdenWisden Cricketers' Almanack
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom...
in its review. It went on: "The appointment of an inexperienced player to lead a side forced to make experiments seemed like a leap in the dark, but as the summer advanced deeds spoke louder than words and in the end an adventurous policy was fully justified."
Rogers' own contribution was 1030 Championship runs, 1127 in all matches, including his first century, 101, batting at No 7 against Northamptonshire
Northamptonshire County Cricket Club
Northamptonshire 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 Northamptonshire. Its limited overs team is called the Northants Steelbacks. The traditional club colour is Maroon. During the...
at Frome
Frome
Frome is a town and civil parish in northeast Somerset, England. Located at the eastern end of the Mendip Hills, the town is built on uneven high ground, and centres around the River Frome. The town is approximately south of Bath, east of the county town, Taunton and west of London. In the 2001...
. In this innings, he hit three sixes and nine fours, and shared a seventh wicket partnership of 182 with Harold Stephenson
Harold Stephenson
Harold William Stephenson was an English first-class cricketer who played for Somerset. He captained Somerset from 1960 until his retirement in 1964....
; Rogers and Stephenson were responsible for several late-innings fast-scoring partnerships in Somerset matches in 1950.
Rogers' second season as Somerset captain, 1951, was more difficult than the first. The side was dependent for wickets on a trio of spin bowlers, Johnny Lawrence
Johnny Lawrence
John Lawrence, known as "Johnny", was a diminutive Yorkshire-born all-round cricketer whose middle or lower order batting and leg-break and googly bowling were of great importance to Somerset in the 10 cricket seasons immediately after the Second World War.-Early career and playing style:Born at...
, Ellis Robinson
Ellis Robinson
Ellis Pembroke Robinson was a first-class cricketer who took over 1,000 first-class wickets for Yorkshire from 1934 to 1949, and Somerset from 1950 to 1952.-Early life:...
and Horace Hazell
Horace Hazell
Horace Leslie Hazell was a cricketer who played for Somerset County Cricket Club in English first-class cricket....
, with the last two both past 40. In 1950, runs had come from several team members: in 1951, Maurice Tremlett
Maurice Tremlett
Maurice Fletcher Tremlett was an English cricketer, who played for Somerset, Central Districts and England....
made more than 2,000 and 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...
1,400, but no one else apart from a couple of irregular amateurs averaged more than 20. Rogers made only 784 runs in Championship games with a top score of 58, although his season average and total was improved by an unbeaten 107 in 160 minutes against the South African touring team
South African cricket team in England in 1951
The South African cricket team toured England in the 1951 season to play a five-match Test series against England.England won the series 3-1 with 1 match drawn.-South African team:...
. This was to prove his highest score in first-class cricket. With both batting and bowling inadequacies, Somerset fell back to 14th in the Championship, with only five victories and 15 defeats.
Worse followed in 1952. Gimblett made 2,000 runs, and the rest of the batting was marginally improved over 1951, but inability to take wickets at reasonable cost consigned the side to the bottom of the Championship table for the first time since 1913. Only two matches were won all season and, Wisden reported, "even these meagre successes were due as much to the spin of the coin as the turn of the ball. When Somerset won the toss in the Bath Festival they triumphed over 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...
and 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...
and when they lost it they went under to Leicestershire
Leicestershire County Cricket Club
Leicestershire County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh national cricket structure, representing the historic county of Leicestershire. It has also been representative of the county of Rutland....
." Wisden noted too that morale was low: "General slackness, particularly in fielding, was Somerset's biggest handicap. Until the whole club develops a more enthusiastic spirit as portrayed by Gimblett, they will continue to disappoint their faithful supporters."
Rogers himself had a mediocre season: he made 841 runs in the Championship, with a third and final career century, an unbeaten 102 in Gimblett's benefit match
Benefit (sports)
A benefit or testimonial is a match or season of activities granted by a sporting body to a loyal sportsman to boost their income before retirement. Often this is in the form of a match for which all the ticket proceeds are given to the player in question.There have been occasions when a...
against Northamptonshire at Glastonbury
Glastonbury
Glastonbury is a small town in Somerset, England, situated at a dry point on the low lying Somerset Levels, south of Bristol. The town, which is in the Mendip district, had a population of 8,784 in the 2001 census...
. At the end of the season he stood down from the captaincy, and though he appeared again in nine matches in 1953, he was not successful and left first-class cricket.
Personal style
Rogers was captain in 89 of the 119 first-class matches he appeared in. His instincts appear to have been largely attacking, and he had a limited and ageing side at his disposal. David Foot, the historian of Somerset cricket, wrote: "The crowd quite liked him, though he wasn't wholly one of the boys." Foot records the senior professional, Horace Hazell, being taken out for drinks at restaurants by Rogers and returning "as drunk as a handcart". But Eric Hill, one of the young players of the time and later the doyen of the Taunton press box, "feels that Rogers probably lacked rapport with the younger professionals". Hill records, in Foot's book, Rogers ordering a curfew of 10 o'clock in a match against Hampshire: "The skipper plotted his evening accordingly and staggered up to bed at half-past nine... more drunk than anyone I've ever seen in my life."As was sometimes the custom of the 1950s, Rogers was nominally the secretary as well as the captain of Somerset, though the secretarial duties appear to have been undertaken by a succession of retired military gentlemen. The arrangement would have allowed Rogers to draw a salary while maintaining his amateur status.