Along with Doug Wright and Eric Hollies, Jenkins was a star of the last generation of English leg-spinners before a more defensive mindset, followed by failed rule changes like a standard 75 yards (68.6 m) boundary[2] and then the advent of one-day cricket, all but killed off home grown wrist spinners.
Cricket writer, Colin Bateman, noted, "true to the leg-spinner's image, Roly Jenkins was one of the game's great characters and entertainers whose performances ebbed and flowed with how the mood took him.
He was carefully nursed in his first three seasons – separated by six years with no county matches due to World War II – but some of his performances already showed he was potentially a leg-spinner of more than ordinary ability.
In his benefit year of 1953, Jenkins began superbly as a bowler but not only lost form with the bat so much that he averaged under ten an innings, but suffered a seriously chipped bone in his knee when bowling against Leicestershire late in June.
However, after a severe attack of fibrositis early in 1955,[10] Jenkins returned to something like his best late that year, whilst in 1956 he took 101 wickets at a better average than ever before, and frequently captained his county due to England calls upon Peter Richardson.
Nonetheless, after retiring from first-class cricket, Jenkins played for fifteen years with West Bromwich Dartmouth in the Birmingham and District League, in the process establishing a reputation beyond that which he had as a county player.