Barrie Whittingham found a regular place the first team squad at Nottinghamshire for the start of the 1963 County Championship and played his part in a greatly-improved team performance. The club’s report commented: “After several years in the doldrums, we take genuine pleasure in submitting this report…a season which may well prove to be a turning point in the Club’s history – a season in which everyone connected with the Club rose to the occasion.”
He was identified by that report as being among the most promising recruits: “The performances of two young players, Barrie Whittingham and Ian Moore, were most encouraging and augur well for the future. Both scored over 1,000 runs in what was their first full season.”
In fact, that was the high point of Whittingham’s time with the club and the only season in which he topped 1,000 runs, though his two First-Class hundreds came later.
Norman Barrie Whittingham was born on 22 October 1942 in Silsden, Yorkshire, and played one match for his home county’s Juniors side in 1957. He batted left-handed and bowled right-arm off breaks, though his bowling was rarely used at First-Class level – his one wicket (1-9 v Oxford University) cost a total of 122 runs.
Whittingham played two First-Class matches for Nottinghamshire, against Cambridge University and the visiting Pakistanis, in June 1962. The next season was undoubtedly his best – 1,249 runs at 25.48 with ten Fifties and a teasingly close top score of 98 – but he was not able to sustain that level of performance and left Trent Bridge at the end of the 1966 season.
His First-Class record was played 77, aggregate 2964, average 22.11 with two centuries, top score 133, and 15 half-centuries (and that one wicket, of course); in List-A cricket he appeared 5 times for Notts, making 85 runs – 69 of those in one innings – at 17.00.
June 2020
Nottinghamshire First-Class Number: 434