Hollies was born in
Old Hill,
Staffordshire. A
leg spin bowler, Hollies made his English county debut for
Warwickshire in 1932 and debuted for England in 1935, after showing his skill on the generally easy Edgbaston wickets. Hollies did not spin the ball as much as most leg-spinners but he gained in accuracy as a result, and he frequently bowled amazingly long spells for his county, most notably 73 overs in one innings against
Worcestershire in 1949. He varied his stock leg-break with a top-spinner and a googly that was well concealed and gained him many wickets, most famously the one of Bradman in 1948. He took over 100 wickets for Warwickshire every year between 1935 and 1957, with the exceptions of 1936 (dreadful weather that reduced his normally prodigious output of overs), 1953 (injury) and 1956 (poor form, probably due to him captaining the side).
During the war, when three-day cricket was impossible due to the labour demands of war production and military service, Hollies bowled for West Bromwich Dartmouth in the
Birmingham and District League and his skill was such as to make them invincible. With Hollies taking a total of 499 wickets as their professional, West Bromwich Dartmouth won the league every year from 1941 to 1945 and lost only seven matches during the war period. At his peak, he was one of the best bowlers in England, and it is believed that the
Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) erred in not taking him to Australia, after he was the leading wicket-taker in the country for a struggling Warwickshire side in 1946. That year, on one of the relatively few hard pitches, he took, without the direct assistance of a fielder, all ten wickets (seven bowled, three
LBW) in an innings against
Nottinghamshire. "The last time I saw Eric Hollies bat at
Birmingham,” recalled
Jack Fingleton in 1958, "he was clapped and cheered all the way to the middle at No. 11. Everybody knew there would be no pretty passes at the ball and deft deflections from Eric. They knew that if he could only survive two balls they would see something in batting unknown to any textbook". Bateman added: "when it was time to get his pads on, Eric would prop his bat up in the Edgbaston dressing room window and say to it: 'Now while I’m getting ready, you find out what the ball’s doing'”. Warwickshire CCC named one of the stands at
Edgbaston Cricket Ground, the 'Eric Hollies Stand. Hollies died in
Chinley,
Derbyshire in April 1981, at the age of 68. ==Bibliography==