ABSTRACT

Harold Gimblett, Somerset and England batsman, was no ordinary cricketer. In a 19-year career that began in 1935, he scored 49 centuries, twice scoring over 2000 runs in a single season and, in one match against Sussex, scoring 310. However, Foot's (1982) book, aptly named Harold Gimblett, tortured genius of cricket, recorded Gimblett's battles to cope with the pressures of being a top-class cricketer. All through his cricket career and for much of the rest of his life, he endured chronically high levels of anxiety. On 1 March 1976, aged 63, Gimblett committed suicide by taking an overdose of tablets (Roberts, 1982).