Jimmy Binks
{{Short description|English cricketer}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2016}}
{{Use British English|date=March 2016}}
{{Infobox cricketer
| name = Jimmy Binks
| image =
| country = England
| fullname = James George Binks
| birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1935|10|5|df=yes}}
| birth_place = Hull, Yorkshire, England
| batting = Right-handed
| bowling = Right-arm leg-break
| role = Wicketkeeper
| international = true
| testdebutdate = 21 January
| testdebutyear = 1964
| testdebutagainst = India
| testcap = 419
| lasttestdate = 3 February
| lasttestyear = 1964
| lasttestagainst = India
| club1 = Yorkshire
| year1 = 1955–1969
| columns = 3
| column1 = Test
| matches1 = 2
| runs1 = 91
| bat avg1 = 22.75
| 100s/50s1 = 0/1
| top score1 = 55
| hidedeliveries = true
| catches/stumpings1 = 8/–
| column2 = FC
| matches2 = 502
| runs2 = 6,910
| bat avg2 = 14.73
| 100s/50s2 = 0/18
| top score2 = 95
| catches/stumpings2 = 895/176
| column3 = LA
| matches3 = 30
| runs3 = 247
| bat avg3 = 13.72
| 100s/50s3 = 0/0
| top score3 = 34
| catches/stumpings3 = 26/8
| date = 18 November
| year = 2024
| source = http://www.cricketarchive.com/Archive/Players/1/1218/1218.html CricketArchive
}}
James Graham Binks (born 5 October 1935){{cite book |title=The Yorkshire County Cricket Club: 2011 Yearbook |last=Warner |first=David |year=2011 |edition=113th |publisher=Great Northern Books |location=Ilkley, Yorkshire |isbn=978-1-905080-85-4 |page=363 }} is a former English cricketer who played as a wicket-keeper for Yorkshire.{{cite web | url = http://www.cricketarchive.co.uk/Archive/Players/1/1218/1218.html| title = Jimmy Binks |website= Cricketarchive.com | access-date = 2011-03-27}} Although he was regarded by many as the best wicket-keeper of his generation, his limited batting ability restricted him to just two Test match appearances for England, both on the 1963-64 tour to India. Ironically, because of injuries to other players, he opened the batting in three of his four Test innings.{{cite book |title=If The Cap Fits |last=Bateman |first=Colin |year=1993 |publisher=Tony Williams Publications |isbn=1-869833-21-X |page=[https://archive.org/details/ifcapfits0000unse/page/21 21] |url=https://archive.org/details/ifcapfits0000unse/page/21}}
Life and career
Binks' County Championship career is unique. Coming into the Yorkshire team in June 1955, he then played in every single Championship game played by Yorkshire until he retired at the end of the 1969 season. Yorkshire won the Championship seven times in this period and the Gillette Cup twice.
Binks stands 19th on the all-time list of wicketkeepers with 1,071 first-class dismissals. He holds the record for the most catches in an English season with 96 in 1960.{{cite news |url=http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/149206.html |title=Another India-Australia thriller |publisher=ESPNcricinfo |date=5 October 2017 |access-date=9 October 2017}} With 11 stumpings in that season, he is one of only seven wicket-keepers to achieve more than 100 dismissals in an English season.
With regard to Binks' short international career, the cricket commentator, Colin Bateman, stated, "Binks... oddly failed to reproduce the elegant assurance he brought to his work with Yorkshire. It may have had something to do with the fact that he was also asked to act as emergency opener". Binks' Yorkshire colleague Fred Trueman said that the "greatest injustice of all" (by the England selectors) was their limitation of Binks to only two Tests. In Trueman's opinion, Binks was "far and away the best wicket-keeper in the country after Godfrey Evans" and several of those selected ahead of him were "nowhere near as good".{{cite book|author=Fred Trueman|author-link=Fred Trueman|title=As It Was|page=213|publisher=MacMillan|isbn=978-1405041485}}
Binks had his benefit year in 1967 with a range of matches around Yorkshire and the fund realised £5,351. His chosen county match was 24–27 June at Headingley against Surrey. Yorkshire, with Trueman as acting captain, won by an innings and 92 runs (Binks scored 32 runs but took only one catch). Sir William Worsley, the club president stated: "No player in the history of Yorkshire cricket has served his County better than Jimmy Binks". Binks was a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1969 and retired at the end of that season.
References
{{Reflist}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Binks, Jimmy}}
Category:England Test cricketers
Category:Wisden Cricketers of the Year
Category:International Cavaliers cricketers
Category:Cricketers from Kingston upon Hull
Category:Lincolnshire cricketers
Category:Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers
Category:English cricketers of 1946 to 1968
Category:English cricketers of 1969 to 2000
Category:20th-century English sportsmen
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