John Aldridge

Keith John Aldridge (born 13 March 1935) is an English former cricketer who played first-class cricket for Worcestershire in England and for Tasmania in Australia. He was born in Evesham, Worcestershire. Aldridge was a right-arm fast-medium bowler who took more than 250 first-class wickets. As a right-handed tail-end batsman he offered little, with a career batting average of under seven. His career in England was marked by controversy over his bowling action, though he later bowled in Australia without incident. Early cricket career Aldridge debuted for Worcestershire during the 1956 season, in a game against Sussex, and took two wickets with his bowling in the first innings. Towards the end of the season he played fairly regularly as illness and injury kept the two front-line faster bowlers, Jack Flavell and Len Coldwell, out of the side, and he finished his first season with 34 wickets at an average of 24.00. He was, said Wisden Cricketers' Almanack in its review of the Worcestershire season in 1956, "a tall young player with plenty of pace [and] showed sufficient promise to ease any worries about the opening bowling". Aldridge's record in the 1957 season was very similar, though in an unsuccessful season for Worcestershire he headed the county's bowling averages. In 1958, Coldwell was out of form, and from mid-season Aldridge played regularly and again headed the county's bowling averages, taking 60 wickets an average of 16.80. The total included Aldridge's first five-wicket hauls and the six wickets for 26 runs he took in Sussex's only innings of a rain-ruined game proved to be the best bowling figures of his career.