In one of the first books I read, the writer had posed the question: ‘Who was the greatest all-rounder in the history of cricket?’, before providing this answer: ‘He was a left-arm bowler and a right-hand batsman, who was born in the village of Kirkheaton’.

I now forget the title of the book, but remember the author. He was A. A. Thomson, a notorious partisan of Yorkshire cricketers. He had grown up idolizing Wilfred Rhodes and George Hirst, who both played for that county, who wer...