A fast right-arm bowler, he could, with more fortune, have been the perfect foil of his era for John Snow.
Snow prospered, picking up thirty one wickets to become the decisive factor in England's claiming the Ashes, but Ward, even before injuries struck, struggled.
In 1973, he refused to bowl in a County Championship game against Yorkshire, and Derbyshire's captain, Brian Bolus, banished him from the field.
[2] In 1976, he left the county in unhappy circumstances, but was called up to play against the West Indies in the fifth, and final, Test Match of his career.
On the last day, with the West Indians pressing for victory, he held them for almost an hour before falling for a duck.