Rodney Lynes Pratt (born 15 November 1938) is a former English

cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

er who played

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is of three or more days scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officially adju ...

for

Leicestershire Leicestershire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. It is bordered by Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire to the north, Rutland to the east, Northamptonshire to the south-east, Warw ...

between 1955 and 1964. He was a right-handed lower-order batsman and a right-arm medium-fast bowler. He was born at Stoney Stanton in Leicestershire.

Cricket career

Pratt was just 16 when he made his first-class cricket debut for Leicestershire in 1955, and only 17 when he took 10

Somerset Somerset ( , ), Archaism, archaically Somersetshire ( , , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel, Gloucestershire, and Bristol to the north, Wiltshire to the east ...

wickets for a total of 60 runs in a match in 1956. But after this promising start he largely disappeared from county cricket for the next three seasons, making only occasional appearances for Leicestershire while he was doing his

National Service National service is a system of compulsory or voluntary government service, usually military service. Conscription is mandatory national service. The term ''national service'' comes from the United Kingdom's National Service (Armed Forces) Act ...

, but playing also in a handful of first-class games for the Combined Services cricket team. In one of those occasional Leicestershire games in the summer of 1959 he revealed hitherto unseen batting skills: it was his 19th first-class game, and his innings of 80 against

Essex Essex ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England, and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Kent across the Thames Estuary to the ...

was a bigger total than all of his previous innings combined, and was to remain his highest score. Pratt returned to county cricket in 1960 and for the next four seasons was a fairly regular member of the Leicestershire first team, usually acting as the third seam bowler after Terry Spencer and, often, Brian Boshier and batting around No 7 in the order – Leicestershire in this period had a very long tail. He had some successes as a batsman: in June 1960, for example, he made 71 against

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Berkshire to the north, Surrey and West Sussex to the east, the Isle of Wight across the Solent to the south, ...

and later in the same month there was 62 against

Nottinghamshire Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated ''Notts.'') is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. The county is bordered by South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. Th ...

. He did not improve on his previous best bowling figures in 1960, but in 1961 against

Glamorgan Glamorgan (), or sometimes Glamorganshire ( or ), was Historic counties of Wales, one of the thirteen counties of Wales that existed from 1536 until their abolishment in 1974. It is located in the South Wales, south of Wales. Originally an ea ...

, opening the bowling with Spencer, he took seven for 47 and these were the best bowling figures of his career. He took 65 wickets in 1961, and this was the best seasonal return of his career. Pratt missed the whole of the first half of the 1962 season, not appearing in the first team until July, a period in which Leicestershire failed to record a single victory in 13

County Championship The County Championship, currently known for sponsorship reasons as the Rothesay County Championship, is the only domestic first-class cricket competition in England and Wales. Established in 1890, it is organised by the England and Wales Cri ...

matches. He then took 50 wickets and, although Leicestershire still finished at the bottom of the Championship table, in the last game of the season they came close to beating the Champions,

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ) is an area of Northern England which was History of Yorkshire, historically a county. Despite no longer being used for administration, Yorkshire retains a strong regional identity. The county was named after its county town, the ...

, with Pratt taking 11 wickets in the match. Pratt's first-class career then tailed off in the 1963 and 1964 seasons: in 1963, he was a regular in the team until the end of June, but then reappeared in only the last two games; and in 1964, he made only eight first-class appearances. In both seasons, he played in Leicestershire's single matches in the Gillette Cup one-day competition. He scored 25 and took the first three wickets, albeit expensively, in the first-ever English List A match in 1963; Leicestershire were so comprehensively thumped in 1964 that he did not even get on to bowl. At the end of the 1964 season, he left the Leicestershire staff.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pratt, Rodney 1938 births Living people English cricketers Leicestershire cricketers People from Stoney Stanton Cricketers from Leicestershire Combined Services cricketers 20th-century British military personnel Military personnel from Leicestershire 20th-century English sportsmen