Ken James

Kenneth Cecil James, died at Palmerston North, on August 21, aged 71. When he came to England with the first New Zealand team in 1927, he was expected to be second-string keeper to his captain, Tom Lowry. He soon disposed of this theory, keeping in a large proportion of the matches and, in a side which was clearly not yet ready for Test cricket, being accepted as one of the players of Test class. This impression he strengthened on his second visit in 1931. Qualifying for Northamptonshire, he played for them from 1935 to 1939 and then, after serving in the R.N.Z.A.F. during the war, returned to New Zealand. In a career for Wellington which started in 1923 he had scored several centuries and came to be regarded as a reliable bat, but, though he often showed valuable determination in a crisis, he did not, in England, live up to this reputation until his third regular season for Northamptonshire, 1938, when he exceeded a thousand runs and made two hundreds. As a wicketkeeper he ranked high, but, in as much as he was one of the first to make a habit of standing back to medium-pace bowling, he must be regarded as partially responsible for one of the most questionable developments in modern cricket. He excelled in dealing with the spin of W. E. Merritt his New Zealand colleague who joined him at Northampton.
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack