He was a hostile bowler who sometimes sledged opposing batsmen and questioned umpires' decisions, behaviour which was unusual during his playing days.

After a similarly successful season in 1920, he was selected for the 1920–21 Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) tour of Australia, during which he appeared in two of the five Tests.

In the early 1920s, Waddington played several football matches for Halifax Town as a goalkeeper, and after his retirement from cricket enjoyed some success as an amateur golfer.

He was in trouble with the police on more than one occasion and after the Second World War was charged with defrauding his wartime employers, the Ministry of Food; he was found not guilty.

[2][5] When war was declared, Waddington volunteered for Lord Kitchener's New Army, joining the Bradford Pals battalion of the West Yorkshire Regiment.

[4][7] Yorkshire's bowling attack was severely depleted when cricket resumed in 1919 owing to a combination of retirements and deaths in the war.

[6] Having returned to play for Laisterdyke in the Bradford League,[4] Waddington was called into the Yorkshire side at the beginning of July for the County Championship match against Derbyshire.

[9] In the official history of Yorkshire County Cricket Club, Derek Hodgson suggests that Waddington's versatility brought him success, as did the line which he bowled to the batsmen.

[19] The MCC had been reluctant to tour so soon after the war, and critics had predicted the bowling would be weak in Australian conditions, where the pitches were generally hard and good for batting.

[5][11] The tour was a frustrating experience for Waddington, who found the heat difficult to deal with; he was also unhappy that most of his appearances came in the non-first-class country matches, many against opponents fielding more than eleven players to make a more even fight.

[11] The introduction of the pace bowler George Macaulay into the team gave him more support,[24] but according to a later edition of Wisden, Waddington's form was poor that year.

[25] The almanack's review of the 1921 season suggested that, when at full strength, Yorkshire had the best bowling attack in the championship,[26] but the team finished third.

Wisden suggested that "Yorkshire were very good at every point, but their main strength lay in the excellence and variety of their bowling ... [Waddington] was, on occasions, more successful against strong sides than he had ever been before.

His season ended with festival games at Eastbourne, where he represented the North against the South and played for a team of ex-Royal Air Force servicemen.

"[33] The umpires reported Waddington to the cricket committee of the MCC for inciting the crowd through his appeals and gestures of displeasure when batsmen were not given out.

[10] The editor of Wisden suggested that a handful of players were the root cause of Yorkshire's problem;[35] Geoffrey Wilson resigned at the end of the season,[36] and these events probably cost Macaulay a place in the England Test team.

[35] The Yorkshire cricketer and journalist Bill Bowes later recalled a story in circulation that Waddington had deliberately tripped and injured the Middlesex player J. W. Hearne around this period, although he did not specify if it was during the 1924 Sheffield match.

[30] Waddington's bowling declined further in 1927, to the point where Wisden suggested his record was poor and his "work was only occasionally worthy of his reputation".

He then released the ball from the corner of the bowling crease, creating a sharp angle for the batsman to face, sometimes using short deliveries with a ring of leg side fielders.

[4] Neville Cardus, the journalist and cricket writer, described it as "gloriously rhythmical",[50] and "so lovely that one simply cannot deny he is a good bowler.

"[52] But Sutcliffe suggested that Waddington did not possess the required patience: "He used to hit up a brilliant 30 or 40 before making a perfectly silly shot".

[52] Waddington resented the class divisions in English cricket, his feelings fuelled by experiences of officers in the war and possibly his tour to Australia in 1920–21.

He fully embraced Yorkshire's hard-edged competitiveness in the early 1920s: he questioned the decisions of umpires and sledged opposing batsmen, both of which were unusual at the time.

In 1954–55, the Yorkshire player and England captain Len Hutton invited Waddington to accompany the members of the MCC team to Australia.

En route by sea, the team visited the grave of Hedley Verity, the Yorkshire bowler who was killed in Italy in the Second World War and buried there.

[2][4][59] He was a good enough golfer to represent Yorkshire, to partner Henry Cotton,[2][4] and to play in the qualifying rounds of the Open Championship in 1935 and 1939.

[52] One Bradford golf club banned him after he poured a glass of beer over the captain, who Waddington believed had used inappropriate language in front of a woman.

[2] A motorcycling enthusiast, he regularly attended the Isle of Man TT, although his love of fast cars brought him trouble from the police at times.

"[63] At the start of the Second World War, Waddington was appointed chairman of the North Eastern Division Advisory Committee for the Control of Oils and Fats and became an agent of the Ministry of Food.

[65] When the war concluded, he was charged with conspiracy to defraud the Ministry of Food when it was discovered that a letter detailing amounts of money had been altered.