[2] Playing first for Norfolk in the Minor Counties at the age of 16, he qualified for Middlesex in 1937 and was an instant success, scoring more than 2,000 runs in his first full season.

[2] At the outbreak of war Edrich joined the Royal Air Force, in which he attained the rank of Squadron Leader, operating as a pilot for RAF Bomber Command.

No bowler is too fast to hook; no score too large to defy challenge" and was badly bruised standing up to the bouncers of Lindwall and Miller in 1946–47 and 1948.

Compton's and Edrich's aggregates remain the highest ever in an English cricket season, and with the reduction in the number of first-class matches seem likely never to be overtaken.

Edrich's Test career continued until The Ashes tour of 1954–55, but he played less regularly after 1950, when he appeared to have little answer to the West Indian spinners Sonny Ramadhin and Alf Valentine.

When England retained the Ashes at Adelaide in 1954–55 the team consumed over 56 bottles of champagne and Edrich – the life and soul of any party – climbed the marble pillar in the lounge of Glenelg's Pier Hotel and sang "Ginger".

Cricket writer, Colin Bateman, noted, "it is a dull, practical structure which does little justice to their mercurial talents and indomitable spirits".