Cricket commentator Colin Bateman stated, "Bolus was essentially an accumulator, dependably totting up 25,000 runs over 20 summers".
[3] He moved on to Nottinghamshire in 1963, after Yorkshire opted for a relative unknown, Geoffrey Boycott, who was six years younger.
He played 64 matches for Derbyshire, with a highest score of 151 against Oxford University at the Bass Worthington Ground in Burton upon Trent in 1975.
He twice scored more than one thousand runs in a season whilst playing for Yorkshire, as well as ten times for Nottinghamshire and twice for Derbyshire.
He hit the first ball he faced in Test cricket, bowled by Wes Hall, back over the bowler's head for four.
He was unable to convert any of his four Test fifties to three figures, and found himself overtaken in the international reckoning by Geoff Boycott and John Edrich.