Robin Hobbs
Essex and England’s finest leg-spin bowler who once escorted Princess Margaret to a nightclub
ROBIN HOBBS, who has died aged 81, was the last leg-break bowler to have taken 1,000 wickets in English cricket, a milestone that is unlikely to be reached again.
A popular, good-natured member of the fun-loving Essex sides of the 1960s and 1970s, Hobbs also appeared in seven Test matches between 1967 and 1971, becoming the last specialist leg-spinner to play for England for more than 20 years until Ian Salisbury made his debut in 1992.
Although he was unable to establish himself properly at international level, in the county game he was a fine performer and a mainstay of the Essex bowling attack at a time when the leg-spinner was becoming an endangered species. Apart from Hobbs, no one in the first-class game much bothered with such bowling from the mid-1960s onwards, and it was so severely out of fashion that there was genuine worry it might be heading for extinction.
After retiring from first-class cricket in 1975 Hobbs surprised everyone by reappearing four years later for a further three seasons with Glamorgan, in the first of which he was their captain. In all he took 1,099 wickets at an average of 27.09.
Robin Nicholas Stuart Hobbs was born on May 8 1942 in Chippenham, Wiltshire, but grew up in Dagenham, Essex, where his father, Reg, was a grocery-shop owner and his mother, Betty (née Dornhorst), was a housewife.
He went to Raine’s Foundation School in Stepney, east London, and it was there that he first started playing cricket. After leaving aged 16 in 1958 he worked as an insurance clerk while playing club cricket for Chadwell Heath and then Chingford. Essex signed him up in 1960 and he made his first-class debut against Leicestershire the following year at Valentine’s Park in Ilford, winning his county cap in 1964.
After returning career-best bowling figures of eight for 63 against Glamorgan at Swansea in 1966, he made his England debut in 1967 against India at Leeds, bowling 75 overs and taking four wickets during the match and retaining his place for the remaining two Tests of the series plus another against Pakistan.
Picked for the 1968 tour of the West Indies, he played in the first Test in Trinidad but then failed to feature again in the five-match series, instead making more of a name for himself by becoming a smoking companion of Princess Margaret and accompanying her to a nightclub in Barbados.
Similarly frustrated in 1969 on England’s tour of Pakistan, he appeared only in the third Test in Karachi, where England’s first innings was still in progress at lunch on the third day when rioting fans caused the match to be abandoned – leaving Hobbs with the rare distinction of having played in a Test series without at any point having batted, bowled or even fielded.
His international career finished two years later with a Test in Leeds in 1971 against Pakistan in which he was required to bowl just 24 overs. Overall he took 12 wickets in his seven Tests at an average of 40.08, with best figures of three for 25 on his debut.
Back at Essex Hobbs continued to develop a formidable partnership with two other spinners – the left-armer Ray East and the off-break bowler David Acfield – and passed the 1,000-wicket mark in 1975. Although he was a generally ineffective lower-order batsman with a first-class average of just 12.11, one of his finest moments also came that year when he struck a 44-minute century against the touring Australians at Chelmsford – the fastest hundred of the year and still one of the quickest ever.
Reaching his half-century from 30 balls, he sped to his 100 off the next 15 deliveries, hitting Ashley Mallett for 27 in one over and knocking one of his seven sixes through the window of a house next to the ground. Once he had reached exactly 100 the opposition captain Rod Marsh announced that he had seen enough and that he was bringing back the fearsome opening bowler Jeff Thomson – at which point Hobbs cashed in his chips by lobbing the ball up to long-on and sauntering off to a standing ovation.
That turned out to be his final first-class innings for Essex before his retirement at the age of 33. But after playing four seasons of minor counties cricket with Suffolk he was back on the scene in 1979 at Glamorgan, who signed him on a three-year contract to be their skipper.
Taking charge of a young, inexperienced side, he proved to be a popular, straighttalking leader, but after his first year a knee injury required surgery and he dropped down to captain the 2nd XI. Returning to the first team for his final year under a new skipper, Malcolm Nash, he took 35 wickets during the season, shared in a stand of 140 for the last wicket with Rodney Ontong against Hampshire at Swansea, and drew a neat end to his career by playing his final game against Essex, in which he claimed his 50th five-wicket haul.
Turning down a subsequent offer of a contract at Surrey, he decided on a full and final retirement at the end of the 1981 season, bowing out at the age of 39. Returning to work in financial services, with Barclaycard, he kept his hand in at Hutton cricket club in Brentwood, coached Essex’s Under-12 and Under-15 sides for a period, and was a regular spectator at Essex matches at Chelmsford.
His wife, Isabel (née Abrahamse), whom he married in 1968, died in 1997. He is survived by his son.