Yorkshire had a poor season in 1889, finishing second-from-last in the list of counties; writing in 1904, Holmes described this as "the low-water mark of Yorkshire cricket". The team lost twelve games and won eight, affected by the decline of several leading players. The fielding was poor; Peel had twelve catches dropped from his bowling in one game. Only Peel had a good season, and Holmes pondered: "Where would Yorkshire have been without Peel?" He took 130 wickets at an average of 16.39; with the bat, he scored 991 runs, his best seasonal aggregate to that point, at an average of 22.02. He came top of both the Yorkshire batting and bowling averages and had three times more wickets than any other player. Additionally, he was the only player in the team to score a century in matches against another county;