Eric Hollies

William Eric Hollies (5 June 1912 – 16 April 1981) was an English cricketer, who is mainly remembered for dismissing Donald Bradman for a duck in Bradman's final Test match innings, in which he needed only four runs for a Test average of 100. Hollies played all his first-class cricket career for Warwickshire, taking 2,323 wickets at less than 21 apiece.

Cricket writer Colin Bateman noted "Hollies was one of cricket's most extraordinary characters, whose meagre thirteen Tests in no way reflected his contribution to the game. He was a fastish leg-break bowler who rarely had much use for the googly." Bateman added "loquacious, with a rich seam of Black Country humour, he was an immensely respected and hard-working cricketer".

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.