FORMER Yorkshire and England cricketer Edric (Eddie) Leadbeater has died at the age of 83.

Leadbeater will be best remembered as a bowler whose considerable early promise was perhaps never quite fulfilled, but who went on to take almost 300 wickets in his county career and played two Tests for England in 1951-52 in India.

He had a fine line in googlies as a right-arm leg-spinner, said his nephew Marcus Turner.

Leadbeater played 81 matches in his seven seasons with Yorkshire, from 1949 to 1956, before joining Warwickshire for two seasons, where he played a further 37 matches before his retirement from county cricket in 1958.

He took a total of 289 wickets in his county career.

He was called up for England on the 1951-52 MCC tour of India. In his two Test matches, he made 40 runs, bowled eight maidens and took two wickets.

As a batsman, his only first-class century came in his final season when he scored 116 against Glamorgan at Coventry.

Born in Lockwood on August 15, 1927, he was the youngest of six children in a working-class family.

His potential as a cricketer was spotted early and he would travel to Headingley to practise at the Yorkshire CCC nets together with Fred Trueman, who was selected for the Yorkshire first team at about the same time.

The Yorkshire side of the early 1950s contained an array of talented players, including Len Hutton, Norman Yardley, Johnny Wardle, Ray Illingworth, Bob Appleyard, Brian Close and Don Brennan.

During Leadbeater’s seven seasons with Yorkshire, the side finished runner-up in the county championship on four occasions.

Although a regular in the Yorkshire side, Leadbeater was never awarded a county cap, one of only a small number of England players never to have achieved the accolade.

After his first-class career ended, Leadbeater continued to play, mainly in the Huddersfield League, where he took well over 1,000 wickets for Almondbury before finally retiring from the game at the age of 68.

In 1962 he won the man-of-the-match award after leading Almondbury to their only Sykes Cup final victory at Fartown against the then-mighty Paddock side.

After taking three wickets in Paddock’s total of 173-7, Leadbeater opened the batting and hit 105 in an eight-wicket victory against a side who included in their line-up John Pearson, Chris Balderstone, Town goalkeeper Harry Fearnley, Eric Langton and Ted Gill.

Mr Turner said: “He was the most modest of men, passionate about cricket but always self-effacing about his achievements in the game.

“He was a very popular figure and no-one had a bad word to say about him. His great friend in his early days with Yorkshire was Fred Trueman. The two of them were always joking around.

“In his young days, he was also pretty nifty on the football field – he was a great all-rounder.

“Many years after his county cricket career was over, he said he wished he was 14 years old and could do it all again.”

Leadbeater’s first marriage, to Betty Knott, whom he met while playing for Yorkshire against Worcestershire, ended in divorce. The couple had a daughter.

His second marriage, to Mary Ellis, lasted 49 years; he and his second wife had a daughter and three sons.

He died on Sunday at a Huddersfield nursing home, at which he had been living for almost a year, after a short illness.