With Alec Coxon departing for league cricket and Brian Close on military service, it was thought that Yorkshire would have an ordinary season in 1951, yet Appleyard's bowling, which saw him take the first 200-wicket aggregate for four years, ensured they remained near the top of the table.

(In 2001, on the death of Alf Gover, Appleyard became the sole survivor among the twenty-eight bowlers who have taken 200 wickets or more in an English cricket season, the last case of which was Tony Lock in 1957.)

Even at the beginning of 1954, he was not expected to play again, but a surprising recovery saw him second in the averages after Brian Statham and bowling with skill on a perfect pitch at Trent Bridge in his first Test.

He again bowled with skill on unusually erratic Australian wickets, most notably in the extreme heat at Adelaide in the Fourth Test, which clinched the Ashes.

In 1955, by then almost exclusively bowling spinners, Appleyard was almost unplayable on the wet wickets early in the summer, but a knee injury wiped out almost all his cricket after the middle of June.

He recovered his form well enough in 1956, however, to regain his Test place for the first match as Trent Bridge but did not bowl well enough to challenge Jim Laker for the rest of the summer.

Then, in 1957, Appleyard declined so badly that Yorkshire often left him out of their team: he seemed unable to show his old versatility when asked to open the bowling again with Fred Trueman and was not gaining as much penetration on rain-affected surfaces.

[1] As a youth, Appleyard walked into the bathroom of his home in Bradford to find the bodies of his father John, his stepmother, and his two little sisters Wendy and Brenda, in a room thick with gas.