William Odell

William Ward Odell MC (5 November 1881 – 4 October 1917) was an English first-class cricketer who played for Leicestershire. He was born in Leicester and was killed in action in the First World War at Broodseinde in the Passchendaele salient in Belgium. Family and background Odell's father was Rev Joseph Odell, a Primitive Methodist minister who had ministries in Wales, Leicester, where William was born, Brooklyn in the US, and Birmingham, where he was in charge of the Conference Hall and where William was educated at the King Edward VI Camp Hill School for Boys. William's brother Edwin Odell also played first-class cricket for Leicestershire in one match. Cricket career Odell played cricket as an amateur, and was a right-handed lower middle order batsman and a right-arm medium pace bowler. He made his first-class cricket debut in a game for Leicestershire against the London County Cricket Club, and his first bowling victim was W. G. Grace, caught on the long-on boundary. In the return match two weeks later he took nine wickets for 73 runs in the game, Grace again being one of his victims. And in the following Leicestershire game, against Warwickshire, he went one better with match figures of 10 wickets for 103 runs. From 1902 to 1908, Odell was pretty much an ever-present in the Leicestershire side and the leading wicket-taker in several of those seasons, though he also appeared for other amateur teams, including London County and five times for Gentlemen in the series of matches between amateurs and professionals. In 1902, he took 89 wickets in games at an average of 26.41. They included seven Hampshire wickets for 33 runs, which remained his best bowling figures for four years. In his first ever match for London County in 1902, he took six second innings wickets against Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), including Arthur Conan Doyle for a duck.