A HUGE collection of cricket memorabilia which belonged to Wilfred Rhodes has been donated to Yorkshire by his granddaughter.

Among the 293 items is a photograph album with 305 images taken by the Yorkshire and England legend, many of them taken in India in the 1920s. One shows an elephant pulling the roller over a cricket square.

Yorkshire member, Ron Deaton, a cricket memorabilia expert, said: “I have never seen anything like this before, it is just a dream. It is an honour and a privilege to have spent six weeks sifting through it all and it must be one of the most wonderful collections in existence.

“The cricket-loving community throughout the world will be fascinated by this collection, as will all Yorkshire members and fans.”

The collection has come into Yorkshire’s possession a few weeks after the completion of the £300,000 cricket museum at Headingley, which is due to be officially opened in March.

There is an autograph book with the players’ signatures from 45 Test and county teams Rhodes played against, including all the county teams of the 1908 season.

Also included are five cricket balls presented to Rhodes following some of his most outstanding achievements.

One commemorates his 100th Test wicket at Adelaide in 1922.

There is also a large leather casket, shaped like a cricket ball, which was presented to Rhodes by Lord Hawke, then Yorkshire president, on the all-rounder’s retirement from first-class cricket at the Scarborough Jubilee Festival in 1930.

In a remarkable career stretching from 1898 to 1930, Rhodes took 3,598 wickets for Yorkshire, which is 1,117 more than his nearest rival and teammate, George Hirst.

Both were born in Kirkheaton, near Huddersfield.

Rhodes is also fifth in the list of Yorkshire’s heaviest run-scorers with 31,075, including 46 centuries. For England, he took 127 wickets in 58 Test matches and scored 2,325 runs.

Rhodes and his wife had one child, Muriel. Her daughter, Margaret Garton, who lives in Dorset, learned of Yorkshire’s interest in the collection and presented it to the club.