Middlesex in Print

The present Middlesex club was formed in 1864 and has been well served by the game’s past historians, there being a trilogy of bulky histories taking the story from 1864 to 1947. Volume 1, covering 1864 to 1899, was written by WJ Ford. The great historian Frederick Ashley-Cooper wrote the continuation, covering the years from 1900-1920, and former captain Nigel Haig the third, which took the story to 1947.

That series did not continue, but there was a book on Middlesex in the Christopher Helm series, written by David Lemmon and which appeared in 1988 and prior to that, in 1982, a history written by Anton Rippon had been published. There has been no detailed history since although a 112 page brochure did appear to celebrate the club’s 150th anniversary in 2014 and that also appeared as a limited edition hardback (150 copies, naturally) signed by a number of former players.

Moving on to biographical books, instrumental in the formation of Middlesex were the Walkers of Southgate, a family who provided seven brothers who played for the county, and whose deeds  were celebrated in a book bearing that title. The book is one of the oldest cricketing biographies, written by WA Bettesworth and published in 1900. All the brothers played as amateurs, and their fortune came from the brewery, Taylor Walker. More than a century later the brotherhood were celebrated again, in a self-published book by Peter Jouning, The Walkers of Southgate and Middlesex: A Cricketing Fraternity a book that, other than the fact of its existence, I know nothing about.

A contemporary of the Walkers for both club and county was Edward Rutter, who appeared 31 times for the county in the late 1860s and early 1870s. Primarily a slow left arm bowler Rutter published an autobiography in 1925, by which time he was already 83, Cricket Memories.

An interesting character who also played with the Walkers and Rutter was Cuthbert Ottaway, albeit only seven of his 31 First Class appearances were for Middlesex, the majority coming in his student days at Oxford. Ottaway’s greater claim to sporting fame was as England’s first football captain, but he was a talented batsman who, had he not died tragically early at 27 might have been a double international. Ottaway was the subject of a biography, England’s First Football Captain, that was written by Mick Southwick and published in 2009.

Unlike Ottaway Alfred Lyttelton was a double international, and another member of a famous brotherhood, six of whom played First Class cricket. Lyttelton’s cricket career was between 1877 and 1887.After sport Lyttelton enjoyed a distinguished career in the law, and also entered parliament. One of his brothers, Edward, wrote Alfred Littleton: An Account of his Life, published in 1917, four years after Alfred’s death.

Another family who gave six brothers to First Class cricket were the Studds. Two, George and Charles, were capped by England as well as playing for Middlesex. Charles Studd was a class all-rounder but played the game only between 1879 and 1884 before embarking on the missionary work that brought him rather greater fame than his cricket. A biography, CT Studd: Cricketer and Pioneer was written by Norman Grubb and appeared in 1933. The book has been republished on more than one occasion since then.

Just as Studd left the First Class game AE ‘Drewy’ Stoddart made his debut. Another double international, cricket and rugby union, Stoddart was a fine batsman who led England in to victory in the thrilling Ashes series of 1894/95 and, ultimately, was a tragic figure who took his own life in 1915. He was a lifelong source of fascination for David Frith who wrote My Dear Victorious Stod in 1970, a book he updated twice, firstly in 1977 and then in 2015 as Stoddy: England’s Finest Sportsman. 

There is clearly something about families and Middlesex cricket in the Victorian era as the man who comes next is JT Hearne, known as ‘Old Jack’ to distinguish him from his young cousin, JW ‘Young Jack’. JT, a right arm medium pacer, first played for Middlesex in 1888 and played on until 1914. He was capped by England a dozen times in the 1890s. JW, a batsman and leg spinner, joined his cousin in the Middlesex side in 1909 and between then and his retirement, 27 years later, he was capped 26 times by England. Both men feature in Wheelwrights to Wickets, a book published in 1996 by a descendant, another JW Hearne, and which looks at all the many cricketing branches of the Hearne family.

Cyril Foley is the next man in line, and again one whose cricketing career was not the most celebrated part of his life. Foley first appeared for Cambridge in 1888 and played in the first of his 57 matches for Middlesex five years later. Primarily an opener a career average of 16.62 confirms that Foley was not in the first rank of batsmen, but he enjoyed distinguished military careers with both the Army and the Royal Flying Corps as well as, in 1909, playing a leading role in an archaeological expedition to Jerusalem that went in search of the Ark of the Covenant. An autobiography, Autumn Foliage, appeared in 1935.

A year after Foley died ‘Plum’ Warner first appeared for Middlesex. Warner captained county and country, wrote extensively on the game and was heavily involved in its administration once his playing days were over. Perhaps surprisingly there has only been one full biography of Warner, Gerald Howat’s 1987 Plum Warner, to go with Warner’s own My Cricketing Life (1921) and Long Innings (1951).

The first of two Australians to enjoy long careers with Middlesex was Albert Trott, who first played for the county in 1898. Like Stoddart Trott took his own life, in his case in 1914, and after a career of great achievement on the field it was a surprise that it was not until as recently as 2017 that Steve Neal’s Over and Out appeared. It was worth waiting for however as it is certainly one of the best cricketing biographies of recent years.

Six years after Trott another Victorian, Frank Tarrant, first appeared for Middlesex. Tarrant is the subject of one of the very few biographies that is better than Trott’s, Mike Coward’s fascinating account from last year, The Frank Tarrant Story.

Neither of the next two Middlesex men I will consider, both debuting during the Edwardian era, enjoyed distinguished cricket careers. Guy Napier made 81 appearances (21 for Middlesex) over ten years, and took 365 wickets with his right arm medium pace. Wilfred Bird was a wicketkeeper who made 55 (11 for Middlesex) over a similar period. Both lost their lives in the Great War, and both are the subject of excellent monographs by Duncan Anderson in a series of occasional publications he has produced under the general title Victime de la Guerre.

One of the most famous of all Middlesex batsmen, and by a distance the county’s most prodigious run scorer was Elias ‘Patsy’ Hendren. A 1934 book, Big Cricket, was an autobiography, and two other books bearing Hendren’s name, My Book of Cricket and Cricketers (1927) and Cricket Musings (1947, in India) have autobiographical elements. There has been just one biography however, Patsy Hendren: The Cricketer and his Times, written by former teammate Ian Peebles and published back in 1969.

Two years after Hendren debuted, in 1909, Frank Mann first appeared for Middlesex. Like the Walkers before him Mann came from a family that owned a successful brewery and he was to captain Middlesex and, in South Africa in 1922/23, England as well. A generation later Mann’s son, George, another decent batsman, completed the same double. The pair were the subject of a double biography by Brian Rendell, Frank and George Mann: Brewing, Batting and Captaincy, a 2015 addition to the ACS Lives in Cricket series.

Harry Lee was one of three brothers (Frank and Jack each had long careers with Somerset) and he was a professional batsman for Middlesex between 1911 and 1934. He then stood as a First Class umpire until 1946. Lee was a reliable batsman but, only once in South Africa in 1930/31 when he was summonsed while on a coaching contract to cover for injuries amongst the tourists, did he play for England. Not many such men published autobiographies, but Lee did, Forty Years of English Cricket appearing in 1948.

Like Warner before him Gubby Allen, who it is occasionally suggested might even have been Warner’s son, was to become the grand old man of the game. Perhaps surprisingly Allen never did write an autobiography, although he doubtless approved of the magisterial EW ‘Jim’ Swanton hagiography, the 1985 published Gubby Allen: Man of Cricket. It is a fine book in some ways, but those seeking a greater understanding of the Allen persona would do well to invest in one or both of two books by Brian Rendell, Gubby Allen: Bad Boy of Bodyline and Gubby Under Pressure, which analyse his letters home from his two tours of Australia.

A great friend of Allen’s was another England and Middlesex all-rounder Walter Robins. ‘Robbie’ too gave a good deal back to the game after he stopped playing, and eventually his contributions were recorded in a biography from the estimable Rendell. Walter Robins: Achievements, Affections and Affronts appeared in the ACS Lives in Cricket series in 2013.

Another Middlesex and England leg spinner of the inter-war period, and later a writer was Ian Peebles. Peebles wrote a number of very good books on the game one of which, Spinner’s Yarn in 1977, was an autobiography.

One of the biggest hitter in the game between the wars was ‘Big Jim’ Smith. Primarily a fast medium bowler good enough to be selected five times for England Smith enjoyed a reputation as a smiter of sixes when his luck was in and was also one of two Test cricketers to emerge from the Wiltshire town of Corsham, and with the other, Warwickshire’s Sep Kinneir, Smith is a subject of David Smith’s book, Corsham’s Two Test Cricketers, published in 2000.

Two years after Jim Smith started his career that of Denis Charles Scott Compton began. Probably the best know of all Middlesex cricketers Compo gave his name to two autobiographies, Playing For England in 1948 and End Of An Innings ten years later. Compo has also been the subject of several biographies, by Jim Swanton (Denis Compton: A Biographical Sketch, 1949), Ian Peebles (Denis Compton, 1971), Peter West (Denis Compton: Cricketing Genius, 1989), Tim Heald (Denis Compton, 1994 with a new edition in 2006) and Norman Giller (Denis Compton, 1997).

A year after Compton’s debut Bill Edrich, the man whose name he will always be linked with, joined him in the Middlesex side. An Edrich autobiography also appeared in 1948, Cricket Heritage, and a couple of years later in Cricketing Days he published another selection of stories from his career. By and large however biographers have not paid him so much attention as Compton with just Alan Hill’s 1994 biography, Bill Edrich having appeared since 1976 when, understandably concentrating on Bill and cousin John, Ralph Barker published The Cricketing Family Edrich.

Also appearing for the first time in 1937 were George Mann and opening batsmen Syd Brown and Jack Robertson. Of the two Robertson was the man capped by England, and the pair were the subject of a double biography in the ACS Lives in Cricket series by Chris Overson. Jack Robertson and Syd Brown: More Than Just the Warm-Up Act appeared in 2013.

Fred Titmus, who played First Class cricket in five decades, made his Middlesex debut in 1949. Whilst he was still playing Titmus published an autobiography, Talk of the Double, in 1964. More than forty years later, in 2005, a further autobiography was published, My Life in Cricket.

For many years Titmus played with wicketkeeper John Murray, one of the best in the business, who was to be capped by England on 21 occasions. A book on Murray finally appeared in 2019, Christopher Sandford’s biography, Keeper of Style.

Mike Brearley is a fascinating man but to date, although he has written a number of books all of which have some autobiographical elements, he has so far resisted the temptation to write his own life story. In the circumstances Mark Peel’s fine biography from last year, Cricket Caesar: A Biography of Mike Brearley was a very welcome publication.

Two of Brearley’s main weapons, although he had a few problems with the latter, were his spin bowlers, John Emburey and Phil Edmonds. So far there has been a single book about each. In 1986 Simon Barnes wrote Phil Edmonds: A Singular Man, and a year later Emburey’s autobiography, titled simply Emburey followed.

Roland Butcher was, famously, the first man of Afro-Caribbean heritage to play for England and, to add some piquancy to the occasion, he was selected to play first in the Caribbean. It was a tough assignment and Butcher didn’t make enough runs in his three outings to earn another opportunity against more benign opposition. Butcher’s 1989 autobiography, Rising to the Challenge, is an interesting read.

Back in the 1980s Mike Gatting led Middlesex and England. ‘Gatt’ had an interesting career during which he often made headlines, and not always on the back pages of the newspapers. It is perhaps surprising that a quarter of a century on from his retirement from the game we still have only his 1988 autobiography, Leading From The Front.

One of the men who established himself under Gatting’s leadership was an opening batsman from St Vincent, Wilf Slack. A good enough player to win three England caps, and perhaps unfortunate after making a half century against Patterson, Holding, Marshall and Garner in Antigua to not be capped more often, Slack tragically died at 35 in 1989. Bridgitte Lawrence put together a fine brochure, Wilf Slack: An Appreciation, shortly after his death.

Simon Hughes was, with the greatest of respect to a bowler of not inconsiderable talent, one of those journeyman seam bowlers who were so prevalent in the county game through the 1990s. His autobiography, A Lot Of Hard Yakka, was a huge hit in 1997, so much so that it spawned an equally entertaining sequel, Yakking Around The World, three years later.

Mark Ramprakash spent time north and south of the Thames, but a little longer with Middlesex. In 2009 his autobiography, Strictly Me, appeared. It was his second book but the first, Four More Weeks, was a diary relating to the 2004 season, and thus dealt with his time at Surrey.

Another member of the Middlesex seam attack alongside Hughes was the lumbering giant who was Angus Fraser. On his good days, when injury free, Fraser inspired comparisons with men like Alec Bedser and Maurice Tate, and published Fraser’s Tour Diaries in 1988, not a full autobiography, but still a detailed look at his playing career.

Many cricketers enjoy successful second careers in the media, but almost all of them stick to what they know. One of the few to make the leap into mainstream media work is Phil Tufnell, whose ‘cheeky chappie’ persona has made sure he has not been short of work in recent years and publications bearing his name include two autobiographies, What Now? in 1999, and Where Am I? in 2015.

The most recent Middlesex player, to date, to go into print is yet another England captain, Andrew Strauss, who has ventured into the autobiographical genre twice. The first, Coming Into Play, appeared in 2006, and the second, a post retirement reflection Driving Ambition, was published in 2013.

The Tempus 100 Greats book on Middlesex appeared in 2003, written by Robert Brooke. The county also features in the Sutton Publishing Britain in Old Photographs series, compiled by William Powell in 1999. A couple of other more general books on Middlesex are rather older. In 1970, to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the 1920 County Championship success, Ronald Mason wrote Plum Warner’s Last Season and, largely whilst in captivity as a prisoner of war, Terence Prittie put together a series of essays that was published as Mainly Middlesex in 1946.

And my two selections? One has been done, that being a biography of Gubby Allen, but an entirely objective one would, in my view, much enhance the literature of the game. The second is rather more contemporary, and would be a biography of a man who was one of the county’s overseas players between 1977 and 1988, the West Indian fast bowler Wayne ‘Diamond’ Daniel.

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Is Cricket Willing and Ready to Change?

Beyond a rulebook, players and changes made to any given sport, there is a sense of constancy – a feeling shared among diehard fans that ‘here is a game capable of remaining enduring through change, and of retaining that innate sense of itself in the face of the mad dash for change, development, evolution and newness.

Of course, when that sense of constancy is rocked, all hell breaks loose. Those who follow football have been observing it (from whichever side of the fence they stand) since the introduction of Video Assistant Referee (VAR) back in 2016. Until that point, football had encountered only relatively minor changes – changes that took place on the surface level, and within the rulebook, rather than changes which altered the entire process of playing (not to mention watching) a match.

VAR was, prior to its deployment, billed as a direct antidote to issues that were all too frequent on the pitch. The use of advanced AI technology, coupled with a strong sense of optimism for a game free from controversy, lengthy interruptions and glaring errors, promised a new era for the beautiful game – one that would enable fans and players to enjoy the game, rather than

That’s not to say it is impossible to make changes in sports without rocking the boat, but that these changes must be made with a surprising delicacy – and a sense of realism that instances such as VAR’s introduction to football lacked.

So, does it even need to change? And, if so, is the game ready for it? Read more below.

How Things Are

Cricket can, and frequently does, change. Only, it changes on a surface level.

It’s no secret, for instance, that the cricket rulebook makes for byzantine reading – and, of course, that this is often seen as a clear, motivating factor behind cricket’s divisive nature among sports fans. Those who understand it enough to ‘ride the waves’ of changing rules, so to speak, adore it (and for good reason; those who have yet to grasp it are often outspokenly disinterested.

In essence, cricket’s changeability is both a means of attracting fans, and a leading factor behind enduring indifference from the sports non-fans. The ill-fated Super Sub Rule, for instance, lasted just nine months under the ICC before being scrapped – and this is just one example of the fleeting nature of rules which are, of course, devised with the best intentions.

That’s not to say that cricket’s fluid rulebook is driving away fans – or even that it is deterring newcomers. One need only consider its incredible performance in the world of sports betting for instance, where this month alone has drawn in major activity at leading online bookmarkers from those looking to weigh in on test matches, the Pakistan Super League, and T20 (to name just a few).

The biggest names in the sports betting world are continually updating their offerings to capture the waves of interest from cricket fans alone. Accordingly, the Online Betting Guide is updated daily to include over 38 new betting offers for June 2021 and, within the wider world of sports, cricket remains a hot topic across their leading sites.

So, we’ve established that cricket is no stranger to change. On top of that, it can also handle it with admirable flexibility. In other words, while some may see those fleeting rules (such as the Super Sub) as a sign of indecision and misguided overconfidence, their ability to revisit and amend things that are clearly not working is something many other sports are, at this point in time, crying out for.

Still, none of this is intended to suggest that cricket has already perfected itself in ways football, tennis, F1 and so forth haven’t. There are plenty of rules cricket needs, according to its longest serving fans, and there are no doubt plenty of dated and lesser known rules that would, ideally, be erased from the rulebook all together.

It has a ways to go – and may well need to begin that journey in order to keep up with the sporting world at large.

A Review for the Long Term

For many longstanding fans of the sport, a common view is that, while flaws and potholes are unearthed (in the form of injustices for teams) relatively frequently, many simply fizzle out with the next big event.

Many of these injustices manifest as contentious decisions borne of inconclusion. In other words, they happen in the myriad instances of discrepancy between the soft signal, and the third umpire’s more comprehensive understanding of the situation. By the turn of 2021, the controversy had mounted so high that the Board of Control for Cricket in India announces that the Indian Premier League would go ahead without the soft signal.

The ICC has yet to follow suit, but this change seems to be an instance of a more profound change for the sport – something that extends beyond the surface level (those minor, trifling and all-too-often unfruitful amendments to the rulebook) and offers a genuine transformation. While it is yet to be seen how the omission of the soft signal plays out within a premier league tournament, already we can begin to anticipate a sport that is far less defined by its own controversies – and one which enables objective and fair decisions to be reached far more quickly, and with minimal interference.

Of course, a heavier reliance on assisting technologies is something that holds a spotty history, thus far, in the sporting world. Rugby has managed to make the very most of their television match official for nigh-on two decades now, while the third umpire has been present at many cricket matches since the early 90s. VAR is a cautionary tale – one that may, in the future, pay off for the beautiful game, or which may continue to open rifts until, finally, it is abandoned.

The latter looks unlikely, and should no doubt guide the way forward for cricket as they opt to give more power to the third umpire, and genuine objectivity on the pitch.

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Most Popular Cricket Tournaments in India and How to Bet on them

Cricket tournaments in India are some of the biggest sporting events in the country and have become an irreplaceable part of Indian culture. 

Cricket accounts for 93% of sports viewers on TV. This fact alone should be enough proof to convince anyone that cricket is the most popular sport in India. 

But what are actually the most popular cricket tournaments in India, and how can you get started betting on these cricket tournaments? Those are the questions we will explore in this article.

Indian Premier League (IPL)

The Indian Premier League (IPL) is the most popular cricket tournament in India, and that probably doesn’t surprise anyone. 

The tournament is held every year (usually in India, but other countries have also played host to the tournament). 

The IPL is organized in the T-20 format, which is generally regarded as the most fast-paced and entertaining format, hence why it has such a great viewership from India and the rest of the world. The IPL generally attracts more than 100 million unique viewers per match. 

Betting on the IPL is easy – due to the popularity of the tournament, all betting sites in India offer IPL betting options.

Ranji Trophy

Ranji is a domestic cricket tournament played between the state cricket associations in India. 

The tournament is named after former Indian cricketer Ranjit Singh and is the biggest domestic cricket tournament in the country (featuring only Indian players, playing for their state teams). 

The Ranji Trophy is organised every year and is received with much fanfare, as it features some of the biggest homegrown Indian cricket talents. 

Betting on the Ranji Trophy is widely available and can be done using some of the most popular online betting sites in India like Bet365.

Vijay Hazare Trophy

The Vijay Hazare trophy (also known as the Ranji One Day Trophy) is another first-class domestic cricket tournament that features all the same teams from the Ranji Trophy tournament mentioned above.

The main difference here is that the Vijay Hazare trophy is played in a one day format, thus making it a more viewer-friendly tournament for the average cricket fan. 

The popularity of the tournament means that there are also more people interested in betting on the Vijay Hazare trophy, compared to the Ranji Trophy.

If you wish to bet on the Vijay Hazare trophy, it can be done on a number of betting sites, including Parimatch.

Deodhar Trophy

Named after D.B.Deodhar, the grand old man of Indian cricket, Deodhar Trophy is a less glamorous but extremely competitive cricket tournament. 

The tournament is played in the 50-over knockout pattern. The matches are played between India-A, India-B and India-C teams.

The long-form format makes the Deodhar Trophy less popular among average cricket fans, but more popular among hardened cricket enthusiasts who enjoy the old way of playing cricket.

For this reason, finding betting options on the Deodhar Trophy can be tricky, but we discovered that they do offer Deodhar betting odds on Sportsbet.io!

How to Bet on Cricket Tournaments in India

The Indian cricket tournaments mentioned in this article barely scrape the surface of the many amazing cricket events that are played each and every year.

If you’re interested in betting on Indian cricket, you will be happy to learn that there is so much more to choose from than “just the IPL”.

Yes, the IPL may be the biggest and best cricket tournament in the world, however, Indian cricket is vast and full of interesting tournaments as you have discovered in this article.

If you want to get started betting on these Indian cricket tournaments, your best bet is to check out www.MyBetting.in and browse through the cricket betting sites they recommend; join one of the betting sites and you will be able to bet on many of these tournaments!

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Leicestershire in Print

Having come into being in 1879 Leicestershire joined the County Championship in 1895, five years after it began. For many years one of the whipping boys of the tournament the arrival of overseas players, and Ray Illingworth as captain, brought Leicestershire a first Championship in 1975. There were two more in 1996 and 1998, although two division cricket has not suited the county who are currently, in the four day game at least, struggling.

The first history of Leicestershire appeared in 1949. A History of Leicestershire was written by Eric Snow, the brother of Philip, who wrote a classic book on cricket in Fiji, and CP Snow, the noted novelist. Snow wrote a second volume as well, covering the story from 1949 until 1977, thus covering that first championship success. The third history was that in the Helm series, written by Dennis Lambert, and appeared in 1992, so of the latter two successes and the club’s subsequent decline there is, as yet, nothing.

The first book from the pen of a Leicestershire cricketer appeared in 1906, The Complete Cricketer by Albert Knight. The book is not an autobiography, but is nonetheless a fine book and, as I pointed out here, certainly merits much more attention than it gets.

John King was there at the beginning in 1895, and played for the county until 1925 and, just once in 1909, was selected for a home Ashes Test. In 2009 a biography of King appeared in the ACS Lives in Cricket series, written by Anthony Littlewood. The title of  JH King: Leicestershire’s Longaevous Lefthander introduced me to a new word – it means long lived.

In the same year that The Complete Cricketer was published a youngster named Ewart Astill made his debut for Leicestershire. He was still playing occasionally 33 years later in 1939 and although he never played a Test in England Astill did represent England nine times in West Indies and South Africa. An all-rounder with some impressive cumulative figures Astill was also the subject of an Anthony Littlewood contribution to the ACS Lives in Cricket series, WE Astill: All-Rounder Debonair, in 2014.

The only other Leicestershire player whose playing career was primarily during the the interwar period and is the subject of a book is Eddie Dawson. An amateur batsman Dawson led the county for four summers,and like Astill played Test cricket overseas, in his case in South Africa and New Zealand. He is the subject of a substantial biography by Peter Kettle, EW Dawson The Cricketer, self-published in 2009.

Just sneaking in by virtue of his five summers with the county before the Second World War is the New Zealander Stewie Dempster, who brought a welcome touch of class to the county’s weak batting. Dempster was the subject of an excellent biography from Bill Francis, Second Only to Bradman, in 2020.

One popular Leicestershire batsman who did not appear for England was Maurice Tompkin. Starting out in 1938 and playing continuously until his sadly early death in 1956 Tompkin is another to have featured in the ACS Lives in Cricket series. Maurice Tompkin: More Than Just Runs appeared in 2011 and was written by Richard Holdridge.

After the war Leicestershire appointed Charles Palmer as secretary/captain and acquired a fine all-rounder even if, as was certainly the case, Palmer looked much more like a desk bound civil servant than a sportsman. Fairfield Books published Douglas Miller’s excellent biography of Palmer in 2005, More Than Just A Gentleman.

In 1971 Leicestershire signed batting all-rounder Chris Balderstone from Yorkshire and for well over a decade he was a model of consistency and even earned a couple of England caps against the 1976 West Indians. Also a professional footballer for a number of years an autobiography, The Sporting Life, appeared in 2002.

Still the most famous and popular man to have played for Leicestershire is David Gower, who made his debut back in 1975. Gower has lent his name to a number of books amongst them four volumes of autobiography, With Time To Spare, A Right Ambition, Gower: The Autobiography  and Endangered Species, published in 1980, 1986, 1992 and 2014 respectively. Others to have written about Gower are David Goodyear (The Genius of Gower in 1993) and Rob Steen (David Gower: A Man Out Of Time in 1995).

Three years after Gower emerged a young pace bowler made his Leicestershire debut. Like Gower Jonathan Agnew went on to a long broadcasting career, the difference being that Agnew’s Test career is often overlooked. No mean writer Agnew has not produced a traditional autobiography (yet), but Eight Days A Week is an interesting diary of his 1988 season and Over To You Aggers the story of his first decade as a broadcaster.

Philip De Freitas played for three counties, Leicestershire, Lancashire and Derbyshire, but he started with Leicester in 1985, and finished with them twenty years later so his autobiography falls to be mentioned here. Daffy was published in 2012.

As with De Freitas Chris Lewis, another all-rounder, also served three counties, in his case Notts and Surrey as well as Leicestershire. Sadly for him Lewis’s story, by virtue of his fall from grace when caught importing drugs into the UK has made for a rather more spicy book. Lewis’s autobiography, Crazy, appeared in 2017, after his release from prison.

Wicketkeeper Paul Nixon was another who, like De Freitas, left Leicestershire and then returned, in his case for a couple of seasons of his long career to Kent. Nixon’s autobiography, Keeping Quiet, appeared in 2012.

The last Leicestershire player to be the subject of a biographical book, Alan Mullally, was another two county man. In his case the English born Australian raised quick bowler spent the 1990s with Leicester before moving on to Hampshire for another five summers with the county for whom, just once, he had first appeared back in 1988. Mullally, something of a troubled soul, is the subject of A Sort Of Homecoming by Paul Blewitt, published in 2018.

And that, as far as I am aware, is just about it for Leicestershire, other than a couple more to mention, both from Dennis Lambert and both from Tempus Publishing, one each from their Images of Sport and 100 Greats series, published in 2000 and 2001 respectively.

Which brings me on to my two nominations for future books about Leicestershire and, for once, they are not two biographies. The first is however, and the man I would like to learn more about is Les Berry, the county’s long serving batsman who, in 1946, became the first full time professional captain of a county club. My second choice, perhaps more so than for any other county, would be an up to date history, covering as it would the highs of the Championship successes of 1996 and 1998, the early T20 successes, and the recent sad decline.

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Lancashire in Print

Lancashire County Cricket Club was formed in 1864 and has been well served by writers over the years. There have been a number of histories, the most recent of which appeared as recently as 2014, so is not far from being up to date.

The first book I will mention appeared first in 1881 and was compiled by Frederick Reynolds. Lancashire County Cricket Club is essentially just a collection scorecards and statistics, but the period feel and brief annual summaries make it interesting nonetheless, particularly the facsimile edition published by Red Rose Books in 2000 with a lengthy introduction from the pen of Gerry Wolstenholme.

Following Reynolds the first narrative history of the club did not appear until 1952, when a slim volume by Rex Pogson appeared in a series of books on the counties from publishers Convoy. A much more detailed and therefore satisfying history appeared a couple of years later. Lancashire County Cricket was written by Archie Ledbrooke, tragically killed just four years on in the plane crash in Munich that decimated Matt Busby’s young Manchester United side.

In 1989 Peter Wynne Thomas authored the Lancashire volume in the Christopher Helm series, and then just a year later local journalist Brian Bearshaw also published a full history, From the Stretford End.

Moving on to the current century 2000 saw the publication by the club of a pictorial history edited by Keith Hayhurst before, in 2014, to mark the club’s 150th anniversary, a lavish history was put together by Malcolm Lorimer, Paul Edwards, Graham Hardcastle and Andrew Searle.

Moving on to books about individual players the earliest Lancashire cricketer to be the subject of a full biography is Albert ‘Monkey’ Hornby. I choose the word ‘full’ with some care because there are, in large part thanks to Red Rose Books, a vast selection of monographs and vignettes on the ancients of Lancashire cricket.

But returning to Hornby, who captained the Red Rose and England. He has been the subject of two biographies on his own, another as part of a famous duo, and is due to be the subject of another, to be published by Max Books in the not too distant future. The two we already have are the somewhat obscure The Cricketing Squire, which appeared in 1991. Stuart Brodkin’s AN Hornby: The Boss, appeared in the ACS Lives in Cricket series in 2013. Hornby also shares the limelight with his old teammate Dick Barlow in Keith Hayhurst’s The Story of a Cricket Stained Glass Window that was published in 2016.

Which leads on to Barlow who, in 1908 published one of the first cricketing autobiographies. He is also featured in the Hayhurst book I understand that Stuart Brodkin is also researching a biography of Barlow. Also a contemporary of Hornby and Barlow was Scotsman Alec Watson who, over a twenty year career, took almost 1,400 wickets at less than 14 runs each. He has also featured in the ACS Lives in Cricket series in a book written by Duncan McLeish. Alec Watson: Chucker? was published in 2015, the sub-title making clear the main controversy in Watson’s long career.

Another Victorian Lancastrian, and a forgotten man today is Edward Roper. Roper was an amateur who enjoyed no great success in First Class cricket but, unusually, played five matches for Yorkshire after his 28 appearances for the Red Rose. He published an autobiography, A Sportsman’s Memories, in 1921. Frank Sugg took the rather more common route of playing for Lancashire after playing for Yorkshire. A reliable batsman who was selected twice for England his story was told in the ACS Lives in Cricket series by Martin Howe in Frank Sugg: A Man For All Seasons, in 2011.

In 1879 Johnny Briggs, arguably still the greatest all-rounder to have turned out for the Red Rose, made his debut. Herbert Turner published The Life of Johnny Briggs in 1902, shortly after Briggs tragically early death. Since then Stuart Brodkin’s Poor Johnny was, in 2007, one of the earliest books in the ACS Lives in Cricket series, and Colin Williamson’s self-published The Professor of Diddling in 2018 have dealt with Briggs’ life. He has also been a popular subject for a number monographs, mainly for Martin Tebay, but also on one occasion for Malcolm Lorimer.

The next Lancastrian to be the subject of what I will call a memoir rather than a biography is Reginald Wood. In the early 1880s Wood played half a dozen times for Lancashire as an amateur with only modest success. He then emigrated to Australia, which is where he was when Alfred Shaw’s team arrived for their 1886/87 tour. Injury problems caused them to call for Wood’s services and as a result he made a single Test appearance and was, for many years, the only England cricketer of whom there was no known photograph. His curiosity piqued Philip Paine mounted an ultimately successful search, all that he discovered being within the 108 pages of his 2007 book, Finally a Face.

A decade after Wood first appeared for Lancashire another young amateur began his county career, AC MacLaren. The name of Archie Mac is a hallowed down this writer’s way, and in 1981 a splendid biography was published, Archie by Michael Down, who is now the genial proprietor of Boundary Books. 

Another amateur, and one who occasionally captained Lancashire, was Gerald Bardswell , an Oxford blue who, due to business commitments, did not play as often as he or the county would have liked. Dying tragically young in the US at just 33 Bardswell is the subject of a double memoir, with his Aunt who wrote a play about the game. The Bardswells: Fact and Fiction, by Derek Deadman and Christopher Sheppard was published in an edition of just 50 copies in 1979.

I shall return to the Tyldesleys collectively later, but here get to deal only with John Tommy, a champion of the Golden Age. It strikes me as little short of remarkable that no full biography of JT has been written, and that all we therefore have is HE Holmes 1912 published JT Tyldesley in First Class Cricket, a largely statistical book and, given its age, far from easy to find.

A good case can be made for conferring the title of the greatest bowler to have played the game on Sydney Barnes although, given that he only ever played two full seasons of county cricket, in some ways he doesn’t count as a Lancastrian at all. Unsurprisingly there have been plenty of books about Barnes. The first is a booklet, Sydney Barnes, by Wilfred White that was published in 1935, Barnes last season with Staffordshire, at the start of the summer in which he turned 62. Subsequently there have been three biographies. SF Barnes: Master Bowler by Leslie Duckworth appeared in, followed by  Leslie Duckworth in 1967, SF Barnes: His Life and Times by Andrew Searle in 1997 and, as recently as 2018, The Legendary SF Barnes, by JL Nicholls.

Jack Sharp and Harry Makepeace have much in common. Their careers ran side by side for a number of years. Both were double internationals, soccer and cricket, and both played with distinction for Lancashire and Everton. The only thing that is slightly surprising is just how many years elapsed before anyone wrote a double biography about them. That finally happened in 2011 when Roy Cavanagh privately published Two Men For All Seasons.

The name of Kenneth MacLeod is another that is seldom remembered. A Scot and a Cambridge blue MacLeod was a quality all-rounder whose business commitments permitted him only four full seasons of cricket. It is however possible to read an account of his life, James Keddie having self-published Then Came A Cloud in 2016.

We have biographies of two more men who began their Lancashire careers before the Great War, although only just. Charlie Hallows made three disappointing appearances in 1914, but when peace returned he became a prolific opening batsman through the 1920s. Hallows most impressive feat was scoring 1,000 runs in May of 1928, and that is the achievement that Martin Tebay celebrated in his 2008 monograph, Charlie Hallows, although there is sufficient other material in it to justify its inclusion here.

‘Ciss’ Parkin played six times in 1914, rather more successfully than Hallows, and in the early 1920s he proved to be a prodigious wicket taker for Lancashire until he left the county in less than happy circumstances. Parkin the writer produced three autobiographies in 1923, 1925 and 1936 and was on of the subjects of David Foot’s Cricket’s Unholy Trinity. You can read more about Parkin the writer here.

There were four Lancashire players whose careers began in the interwar period whose stories have appeared in print. The first was the celebrated wicketkeeper George Duckworth, who was the subject of one of the early volumes in the ACS Lives in Cricket series in 2007. The book, George Duckworth: Washington’s Ambassador at Large, was written by Eric Midwinter.

The year after Duckworth debuted, so in 1924, the much feared Australian fast bowler Ted McDonald was available for Lancashire after completing his qualification period. McDonald served the Red Rose with distinction for eight summers and in 2015 a biography finally appeared of this fascinating character, The Silk Express,written by Nick Richardson.

Eddie Paynter first appeared for Lancashire in 1926, but it was 1931 before he matured into one of the country’s finest batsmen. An autobiography, Cricket All The Way, appeared in 1962. For several years Paynter batted at the top of the Lancashire order with a young Cyril Washbrook. In time Washbrook too wrote an autobiography, Cricket The Silver Lining, a book which appeared in 1948, well before the end of his career. He was later the subject of a joint biography, Hutton and Washbrook, that appeared from the pen of AA Thomson in 1963.

One of Lancashire’s favourite, and most famous sons is the genial but lethal fast bowler Brian Statham. Rightly celebrated throughout his career and later life Statham lent his name to three autobiographies during his career, Cricket Merry-Go-Round (1956), Flying Bails (1961) and A Spell at the Top (1969). A biography by Tony Derlien, Bowled Statham, was published in 1990 and a collection of tributes edited by Malcolm Lorimer, Glory Lightly Worn, in 2001.

In 1954, whilst still a schoolboy, Bob Barber first played for Lancashire. In time Barber would develop into an aggressive opening batsman whose one Test century, 185 against Australia at the SCG in 1966, is an Ashes classic. Sadly for Lancashire supporters Barber was a Warwickshire player by then. His story, Bob Barber: The Gentleman Amateur, was written with its subject’s full co-operation by Colin Shindler and published in 2015.

It was as early as 1955 that Jack Bond first turned out for Lancashire. Never more than a modest county batsman it turned out more than a decade later that leadership was Bond’s forte, as he played a crucial role in shaping the gifted team that made Lancashire the first kings of one day cricket back in the early 1970s. A biography was long overdue by the time it appeared in 2010, but was worth waiting for. Jack Bond: Lancashire Lad, Lancashire Leader by Douglas Miller is one of the very best books to appear in the ACS Lives in Cricket series.

As Lancashire’s fortunes dipped in the early 1960s so did the interest in the teams they fielded but, in time, interesting monographs have appeared about two of them. One of them is The White Flash by Roy Cavanagh, which tells the story of fast bowler Colin Hilton, genuinely quick but who never quite got his radar right at Old Trafford, nor when he tried again with Essex. Another two county man, in his case because he was sacked by Lancashire, was wicketkeeper Geoff ‘Chimpy’ Clayton, who was the subject of slim collection of writings edited by Malcolm Larimer in 2019.

One of Bond’s charges was the now national treasure David ‘Bumble’ Lloyd. The Lloyd autobiography, Anything But Murder, was published in 2000, but his increasingly high profile as a media personality have led to plenty more books that bear Lloyd’s name, all of which have autobiographical elements. G’Day Ya Pommie B……! in 1982 was the first, and that has been followed by, amongst others, The World According to Bumble (2010), Last in the Tin Bath (2015) and Around the World in Eighty Pints (2019).

Lancashire had another Lloyd of course, West Indies captain Clive, who played for Lancashire from 1968 to 1986. There was just one autobiography from Clive, Living For Cricket in 1980, but he has also been the subject of two biographies, Clive Lloyd by Trevor McDonald (1985) and Supercat by Simon Lister in 2007. His Lancashire days were also celebrated in Lancashire’s Clive Lloyd by Tony Derlien in 1987. 

As popular as Clive Lloyd was Lancashire’s other overseas player of the period, wicketkeeper Farokh Engineer who played for the county between 1978 and 1986, and is now a naturalised Lancastrian. Engineer’s exuberant life has been celebrated in two books, From the Far Pavilion by John Cantrell in 2004, and Colin Evans’ Farokh: The Cavalier of Cricket in 2017.

A third man from the ‘Class of ’68’ was Jack Simmons,already 27 when he joined Lancashire but who was to go to play for another 21 summers. An autobiography, Flat Jack, appeared in 1996.

Another several times author amongst Lancashire’s former players is Graeme ‘Foxy’ Fowler whose Lancashire career lasted from 1978 to 1992 before he spent a final few summers with new boys Durham. His first book was Fox on the Run in 1988, the second Absolutely Foxed in 2016 and the, to date last, Mind Over Batter in 2019.

One of the more under rated Lancashire players of the late twentieth century was Ian Austin. Bully For You Oscar is the title of his autobiography, a book that appeared in 2000, a year before his retirement from the game.

Michael Atherton is a modern day Lancashire legend, at his best through the 1990s. There was a post retirement autobiography from Atherton, Opening Up, in 2002. Prior to that David Norrie had published Athers in 1997.

Like Clive Lloyd and Engineer before him in time Wasim Akram, with the county from 1988 to 1998,  came to be regarded as a genuine Lancastrian by the county’s faithful. He has been the subject of two books, the first a dual study of him and his great strike partner for Pakistan, Waqar Younis. Wasim and Waqar by John Crace was published in 1992. Later an autobiography, Wasim, appeared in 1998.

Moving into the 21st century Lancashire have produced two superstars, Andrew Flintoff and James Anderson. Flintoff inspired a slew of books when he was at his peak. He himself gave his name to Being Freddie in 2005, Freddie My World in 2006, Ashes to Ashes in 2009 and Second Innings in 2015. At the peak of his popularity there were also books by Tim Ewbank and Tanya Aldred.

Which just leaves James Anderson, whose autobiography, Jimmy, appeared in 2013. A 2019 book Bowl, Sleep, Repeat is also essentially autobiographical, and one suspects there will be more to come.

The biographies and autobiographies concluded I am now on to miscellaneous books on the subject of Lancashire cricket. Most will be relieved to know that I am not going to extend this article beyond all reasonable bounds by mentioning every publication that Red Rose Books have produced, although to reassure the few who that comment will disappoint it is a subject I intend to revisit, once Martin Tebay has given me a list. Having asked him for one many months ago I suspect that the man himself may be struggling to come up with a definitive catalogue of his extensive oeuvre.

As far as collections of pen portraits are concerned there have been plenty, and one stands out amongst them, Gerald Hodcroft’s My Own Red Roses, which was published back in 1984. Others are the Tempus 100 Greats volume, by Keith Hayhurst, published in 1994, two by Dean Hayes, Lancashire Cricket Legends and Lancashire Cricketing Greats from 2002 and 1989 respectively, and Roy Cavanagh’s Lancashire Cricket Captains 1865-1991 that appeared in 1994. Geoff Ogden’s Born in Bolton is not dissimilar, albeit geographically limited.

There are also several books about Lancashire cricket that deal with short periods in the club’s long history. Just after the war, in 1946 and 1947 Terence Prittie wrote Lancashire Hot Pot and Second Innings, a selection of writings on the club including accounts of those two post war summers.

In the 1960s Lancashire, before Jack Bond’s era, were in the doldrums and two books look at that time, both excellent. The first, in 2009, was Colin Evans’ Mods and Blockers, and the second David Green’s 2015 published Summer of ’65. Also relevant to those times is a small Malcolm Lorimer booklet that appeared at the start of this year, Diary of a Cricket Correspondent, being the content of the contemporary diaries of Brian Bearshaw.

By 1971 everything had changed, and Vernon Addison and Brian Bearshaw’s Lancashire Cricket at the Top faithfully recorded the early years of the Bond era. After that there was another largely fallow period, interrupted by twin one day triumphs in 1991, the subject of a small book from John Gwynne, Double Delight.

In 2011 the 77 years of hurt finally came to an end and Glen Chapple’s side won the County Championship. There had to be a book, and that was provided by Graham Ostick and Graham Hardcastle, Champions: About Bloomin’ Time. There was no repeat performance in 2015 but, with Boulder Rolling, all-rounder Tom Smith’s diary of the season did find its way into print.

And there are more worthy of mention! First of all Eric Midwinter’s look at the two Old Traffords, Red Shirts and Roses that was published in 2005. Then there is Stuart Brodkin’s Great Days in Lancashire Cricket, published by Red Rose last year, and finally another small book from Colin Evans, Sun, Snow and Strike, published in 2015 and an account of a remarkable match at Buxton in 1975 when a day’s play was lost to snow.

Which just leaves me the agony of choice, and my two unwritten books. The first would be a full biography of the playing members of the two Tyldesley families, JT and Ernest on the one hand, and Richard, James, Harry and William on the other. I am conscious of the fact that Roy Cavanagh has published a brief look at the two families, but a full book is long overdue.

My second selection is a book that I do know exists, in draft form at least. It is the story of my own childhood hero, Frank Hayes, and hopefully one day, in the not too distant future, Frank’s fund of stories will see the light of day.

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AJ Evans: Kent, Hampshire, England and the Escaping Club

If there were a contest to decide who, of all men who have appeared in Test cricket, had the most interesting life then John Evans would certainly be a contender. It is exactly a century ago now that Englishman Evans made his only Test appearance and, therefore, as good a time as any to revisit his remarkable story.

Evans had a cricketing background, his father Alfred, who had been born in Chennai (then Madras) in 1858 being an Oxford Blue. In 1888, having taught briefly at the great public school Winchester College, Evans senior, clearly an entrepreneurial type, had founded his own preparatory school in order to ‘prepare’ the sons of the wealthy for Winchester. The school he founded for that purpose, Horris Hill near Newbury, thrives to this day.

Unsurprisingly in the circumstances young Evans, and a younger brother Ralph who also enjoyed a brief First Class cricket career, followed the path of Horris Hill and Winchester. Evans himself then went to his father’s old college, Oriel, Oxford. Ralph instead went to Cambridge. Three cousins, all born in South Africa, another Alfred, William and Dudley also played First Class cricket, all for Hampshire in the Edwardian years of the first decade of the twentieth century and their father William, so Evans’ uncle, played for Somerset before the county achieved First Class status in 1882.

Evans was 19 when he made his debut for Hampshire in 1908. In 1909 he went up to Oriel, graduating three years later. His record over those years is unspectacular. He was primarily a right handed batsman albeit also a useful right arm bowler, a little above medium pace. He did not however record a century until 1912, when he did so for Oxford against the touring South Africans. This was the year of the ill fated Triangular Tournament, and the South Africans were not a particularly strong side.

Somebody clearly rated Evans however. His 1912 figures were modest, in that he scored 451 runs at 26.52 and took 25 wickets at 25.98. He was nonetheless invited to play for the Gentlemen against the Players at both The Oval and for the Lord’s showpiece, as well as being invited to play for an England XI against Australia and, in the end of season Scarborough Festival, for the MCC against Yorkshire. He recorded an unbeaten 64 in the Gentlemen’s second innings at the Oval, but otherwise his contributions in those games were modest.

Having graduated with a degree in history during that summer of 1912 Evans was promised a job at Eton College teaching History and French, although it was strongly suggested to him that to add another string to his bow he should spend a year in Germany becoming fluent in the German language. Happy to accept both the job and the advice as a result Evans was not seen on the cricket fields of England in 1913.

Whilst he was in Germany Evans was called back during a crisis to cover for a sick colleague at Eton, and was sorely tested by his charges so much so that he changed his career plans, later explaining; I came to the conclusion that schoolmastering was not for me – the truth being that I did not like small boys and the thought of teaching them and looking after them for the rest of my life was intolerable. He described Charles Law, the son of the Conservative politician Andrew Bonar Law who was to be, briefly (in 1922/23) Prime Minister, as the worst of his tormentors.

In the way of the circles in which Evans moved there was a family connection with Frank Lloyd, the owner of Lloyd’s Paper Mills, a substantial company, and not only were he and his company happy to employ Evans they were also content that he should remain in Germany to complete his planned sabbatical, and he only returned shortly before the start of the Great War.

Still effectively at this stage an intern with Frank Lloyd Evans sought his employer’s agreement, freely given, to leave his job and volunteer for active service. As soon as it became known that Evans had the ability to speak French and German he was, unsurprisingly, signed up for the newly formed Intelligence Corps.

Evans’ war was an eventful one, but the episode that brought him enduring fame came in 1916. By then he was a pilot in the Royal Flying Corps and was captured in July by the Germans, having been forced to land behind enemy lines.

The first escape came soon after capture, and Evans got as far as the Dutch border before being recaptured. Moved then to a, presumably, more secure facility Evans managed to get out several more times, without his hard won freedom lasting too long. He was eventually moved again, to a camp known as Zorndorf, but never got there. Evans and another officer managed to decamp from the train taking them to Zorndorf and, eighteen nights of walking later, the pair managed to get themselves to safety in Switzerland.

Also in Switzerland was Evans’ brother, who had been badly wounded on the Western Front and was being looked after by their sister. More fortunate than Ralph, Evans was keen to get back into action but, the rules then not allowing escaped POWs to return to the theatre of their original capture, he found himself with the choice of training pilots in Canada or in Palestine. He chose the latter and in time was moved into a similar role to that he had when originally captured and eventually was taken prisoner once more in not dissimilar circumstances to those that gave rise to his first period of incarceration.

This time Evans’ captors were the Turks, and he was taken to what was then Constantinople (Istanbul). The regime and conditions were harsh and squalid but Evans’ captors, it by now being clear which way the war was going, were not unfriendly. Freeing himself would have been easy, but there was nowhere to escape to, leaving Evans to wait until the opportunity arose to bribe Turkish medical staff to certify that he was sufficiently unwell to be eligible for a repatriation scheme.

With the end of the war Evans was finally able to devote his time to Frank Lloyd’s company and in 1919 he appeared just twice in First Class cricket. The first time was for Gentleman of England against the Australian Imperial Forces XI. The Gentlemen won easily, and Evans scored 68 against an attack that included the fast bowling all-rounder Jack Gregory. Evans other appearance was for the Gentlemen against the Players at Lord’s. In a drawn match he scored 0 and 63.

The paper mill where Evans was based was located in Sittingbourne, Kent, so a fair distance from Hampshire. The last match that Evans played for Hampshire was his only First Class match of 1920, against Kent at Canterbury. Hampshire were easily beaten and dismissed for 99 and 154 although Evans, with 22 and 47, did not disgrace himself.The match was to prove something of a crossroads for Evans who did not play for Hampshire again, switching his allegiance to Kent in what seem to have been entirely amicable circumstances.

There is no suggestion that Evans was ever considered for the ill-fated trip to Australia in 1920/21 when England were beaten 5-0 by Warwick Armstrong’s Australians. Armstrong’s men then followed their visitors back to England for the return series in 1921. Gregory had been a significant factor in the drubbing. His opening partner Ted McDonald had been less impressive in Australia, but in England in 1921 McDonald too was at his very best.

The by now 32 year old Evans began his 1921 season with an appearance for the MCC against Australia at Lord’s. It was certainly a baptism of fire as the tourists first choice attack were lined up against him, all of Gregory, McDonald, Mailey and Armstrong being selected. The Australians won, but with only two of the men who would appear for England in the first Test being included in the MCC side and the winning margin was just three wickets there must have been some hope that a full strength England would put up a better showing in the first Test than they had the previous winter.

That MCC pushed Australia as far as they did was largely down to Evans. Having won the toss and chosen to bat MCC were at 131-7 shortly after Evans arrived at the crease. From that unpromising position their eventual all out total became 284, in large part due to Evans’ unbeaten 69. Half a century later Ralph Barker described the innings as a performance of courage and skill very enthusiastically heralded in the pavilion by the authorities whose traditions he was so successfully vindicating.

In the second innings Evans scored just 3, but his contribution had been noted. A week later the first Test began. Any hopes of improvement after the humiliating reverse of a few months previously were soon dashed however as England were heavily beaten once again, Wisden observing that never in the history of Test Matches in this country has English cricket been made to look quite so poor.

Whilst England were being put to the sword Evans turned out in what was to be the first of only two appearances for Kent that summer, against Northamptonshire in the County Championship. The East Midlands county were not in 1921 the whipping boys they would become as the decade wore on, but they were still not a strong side. Nevertheless Evans could only play against the opposition that appeared and his 102 in the Kent first innings was the foundation on which a big win was built.

After the debacle that was the first Test it was no surprise that England made wholesale changes for the second Test at Lord’s. Equally it is possible to see why the selectors decided to include Evans, despite Barker’s comment fifty years later that; I can attribute his selection in the present situation to no traceable source but encroaching panic and an instinctive feeling that if civilisation were crumbling about our ears it would be reassuring to have a few familiar Club faces around in the last moments.

The Lord’s Test, which began on a Saturday, was played, according to The Cricketer, in beautiful weather and before an enormous crowd of spectators – certainly the largest that has ever been seen at Lord’s. The wicket was said to be in perfect order, the ball very seldom getting up even to fast bowlers like Gregory and McDonald.

England skipper Johnny Douglas won the toss, but the familiar procession began again, England’s much changed side slipping to 26-3. Douglas himself and Frank Woolley, who in this match played two of his finest innings, 95 and 93, steadied the ship, but after Douglas went a stuttering collapse followed. Evans was on 4 when, eleven minutes after he came in, he was bowled by McDonald.

Wisden referred to the occasion being perhaps rather too much for him. Neville Cardus, as would be expected, was rather more lyrical; the form of Evans suggested that he would not only enjoy himself but be the source of enjoyment to others – in a country house match. These tough Australians found easy game in him on Saturday.

All out for 187 England conceded a first innings lead to their visitors of 155. In the second innings they did rather better, although not well enough to prevent an Australian victory by seven wickets. This time Evans scored 14. In its report The Cricketer described him as, initially during his partnership with Lionel Tennyson that saw the pair add 33, not thoroughly comfortable. His one boundary was a nick between his legs to fine leg, although by the time of his dismissal he was said to be beginning to play well when McDonald had him lbw with a yorker on his toe.

It is said that, waiting for his turn to bat against Gregory and McDonald, Evans was sat in the Lord’s dressing room visibly trembling, the implication being that he was scared of what was to come. Of course Evans may well have been nervous, and indeed observed himself in 1960 that I doubt whether the war had left my nerves in a fit state for the strain of a Test match, but the idea that a man who was awarded the Military Cross for continuing his job of photographing a battlefield from a plane that was the subject of heavy enemy fire was frightened of fast bowling is surely ludicrous.

In time Evans’ escape attempts earned him a bar to add to that Military Cross. In addition to events on the cricket field 1921 was a momentous year for Evans elsewhere as he made his bow as an author as well. His book was entitled The Escaping Club and it contained the full story of his ultimately successful attempt to escape from the clutches of the Germans. It sold well and has been republished a number of times.

His business commitments meant that Evans played very little cricket after his single Test, and he seems to have largely confined his sporting activities to the golf course. On his own admission not quite in the front rank of amateur golfers he nonetheless played, effectively, off scratch and enjoyed a good deal of success. There were three Championship appearances for Kent in 1922, and one the following year, but he scored only 34 runs in total. It was therefore quite a surprise when, in 1926 it was announced that Evans had been appointed club captain for 1927. Having finished third in the table in 1926 expectations were high.

In the 1920s Kent’s problem was with their bowling. They had a reliable right arm seamer, Charlie Wright, and the prolific ‘Tich’ Freeman’s leg spin, but otherwise their resources were limited. Evans did well enough though with what he had, and whilst his attack was not as penetrative as the previous year’s, the county slipped just one place in the table to fourth. As for Evans himself he started well, his first 18 innings bringing 694 runs including three centuries. Sadly for him however the remaining 15 saw him add just 138 more.

Evans’ final First Class appearance came the following year, in 1928. He had not retained the captaincy but still turned out eight times for Kent, and did not let himself down. His final match was for the then well known wandering club, Harlequins, against that summer’s touring West Indians at the famous Saffrons ground in Eastbourne. The match was a comfortable win for the Harlequins and, in his final First Class innings, Evans scored 124. George Francis and Herman Griffith weren’t quite in the same league as Gregory and McDonald, but were a fiery pair nonetheless.

When Frank Lloyd died, in 1927, his business passed to a pair of brothers who had been associated with the company for some time. It would seem likely, although I have not been able to confirm this, that the change at the top was the reason why Evans was able to unexpectedly devote an entire summer to the game. Evans clearly did not fancy working under different management and left, deciding to try his luck on the stock exchange. Doing so as the Great Depression hit proved not to have been a wise idea as, to use his own words, I came out of the slump a good deal poorer than when I went in.

In 1939, by which time Evans was 50, war came again. Once more Evans found himself in demand and he joined MI9, lecturing on escape and related matters. In time his method of delivery evolved, and in 1944 he travelled to France to continue his teaching role in the field. As with last war he was demobilised at the earliest available opportunity, although this time he rather regretted the decision.

In 1919 Frank Lloyd welcomed Evans back to civilian life with open arms, but this time the company that he had worked for before joining MI9 had folded, and Evans found that being 56 counted against him in the job market. He therefore wrote another book, Escape and Liberation. Unlike The Escaping Club this one was not a bestseller, although Evans did describe it as a moderate success.

With no offers of employment coming through his door from the private sector Evans took the pragmatic decision to ‘join up’ again. The defeated Germany was in a state of some chaos, and assistance and support was need to enable the country, now fractured between east and west, to start to heal itself. With his experience and linguistic skills Evans was ideally qualified for such a role and spent the next three years in Germany working for the Foreign Office, helping with the rebuilding of West Germany.

On his return in 1950 Evans concentrated on creative matters. He wrote five published books, and also involved himself in a film company, although that one he lived to regret. His final employment, and it must have been a congenial one for a man of his background, was as a director of a sporting magazine.

One book that Evans never finished was an autobiography. He did start one however and, a year after his death at the age of 70 in 1960, a book entitled Heir to Adventure was privately published, by whom I am not entirely sure. The sub-title, Notes for an Autobiography, demonstrate that this was an unfinished item, although it is a well written and, it would seem, honest description of his life. There is virtually no cricket in the book. What there is is a decent reference to Evans’ first appearance for the Gentlemen against the Players back in 1912. His only Test appearance is dealt with in a couple of paragraphs.

Quite why biographers have left Evans alone I know not. In addition to his own story those of his father, brother, uncle and three cousins are all worth telling. It is not as if Evans does not have descendants. He had four children and one of those, son Michael, enjoyed a long career in the performing arts so at least there is cause to hope that at some point in the future a grandchild or great grandchild will decide to share with us the story of their distinguished family history.

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Kent in Print

The present Kent county club was formed in 1870, although there had been a club as far back as 1842. The long history of the club is chronicled in the History of Kent County Cricket Club by Lord Harris. The book first appeared in 1907 and a number of further appendices were issued over the years, and in 1997 all that material was gathered together and republished.

A less ambitious project was Dudley Moore’s 1988 contribution to the Helm series of county histories, and likewise a largely pictorial book by EW Swanton and CH Taylor that was published in 1984, Kent Cricket: A Photographic History. Kent do however get closer to being up to date than most of the counties thanks to Clive Ellis and Mark Pennell. Their 2010 published Trophies and Tribulations looks back over the preceding forty years.

Other historical books include two detailed looks back at early Kent County Championship wins. Clive Porter published Kent Cricket Champions in 2000, looking at the 1906 campaign. Seven years later, in the penultimate summer before The Great War, the county won again and that season was the subject of A Half-Forgotten Triumph, co-written by Tony Quarrington and Martin Moseying and published in 2013. A much later side was celebrated in Dennis Fowle’s Kent: The Glorious Years 1967-1979, published in 1979.

The main focus of these articles is on the relatively recent history of the counties, but occasionally you have to take a nod backwards and with Kent that means to Fuller Pilch, a batsman who was at his best in the 1840s and who was known as ‘The Lion of Kent’. The story of Pilch’s interesting life is well told by Brian Rendell in a book in the ACS Lives in Cricket series. Fuller Pilch: A Straightforward Man was published in 2010.

George Robert Canning Harris, better known as simply Lord Harris, is a name generally recognised primarily because of the autocratic way in which he ran the county club for many years. In fact however Harris was also a fine batsman, good enough to play for England four times between 1878 and 1884. Harris’s autobiography, A Few Short Runs, was published in 1921, and a thoroughly researched biography was subsequently written by James Coldham. Lord Harris was published in 1983.

The England captain who went to Australia in 1882/83 to seek to recover the Ashes was a Kent player. The Honourable Ivo Bligh had a relatively modest playing career, but his place in the game’s history is secure and, almost eighty years after his death, a biography appeared in 2006. Cricket’s Burning Passion is a fine book, which isn’t surprising given that the authors are the excellent Scyld Berry, assisted by Rupert Peploe, Bligh’s great grandson.

The next Kent player to be the subject of a biography also had a relative to thank for the book. Jack Mason is the forgotten stars of the ‘Golden Age’. An all-rounder who played all five Tests in the 1897/98 Ashes series Mason’s life story was told by his grandson, John Lazenby, in Test of Time in 2005.

In the last year of the nineteenth century Colin ‘Charlie’ Blythe made his Kent debut and, as an orthodox slow left arm bowler, was prodigiously successful at both Test and county level between then and the start of the Great War. Killed at Passchendaele two days after the battle ended Blythe was denied the chance to enhance his figures further once peace returned. The game’s writers then left him alone until 2005 when Christopher Scoble’s biography, Colin Blythe: Lament For A Legend appeared. Just four years later a second biography appeared, The Real Colin Blythe, written again by a descendant, John Blythe Smart.

In 1906 one of the longer county careers began when Frank Woolley made his Kent Debut. It would be 32 years before he finally retired, even as a 51 year old scoring almost 1,600 runs for the season. Two years before that retirement, in 1936, Woolley’s autobiography, The King of Games, had appeared and it is perhaps surprising that since then he has attracted little interest from biographers. In the autumn of his years, 1976, his second wife wrote a slim book, Early Memories of Frank Woolley, but that and a slim 1950s book apart only Ian Peebles has attempted to write a biography of Woolley. Woolley: The Pride of Kent was published in 1969.

‘Tich’ Freeman made his Kent debut in 1914. He made a modest start and then, for the decade after peace returned established himself sufficiently to be selected for the MCC parties that went to Australia in 1924/25 and South Africa in 1927/28. It was the summer after he got back from South Africa that Freeman took another step forward, taking a record 304 wickets, and he took at least 200 for the next seven summers. That Freeman is not better remembered is because he achieved little against Australia, and it would not be until 1982 that Tich Freeman and the Decline of the Leg Break Bowler appeared, its author David Lemmon. It remains the only biography of Freeman.

AJ Evans, a batsman who before the Great War had also been a more than useful seam bowler was one of those plucked from county cricket to tackle the speed of Jack Gregory and Ted MacDonald in 1921. He did not let himself down, but was clearly out of his depth and played for England only the once. His only regular county cricket came in 1927 when, just for that summer, he captained Kent. In 1961 Evans privately published Heir to Adventure, sub-titled Notes for an Autobiography. There is a less than a page of cricket content, but the book is still a fascinating one.

Two men who first appeared for Kent in 1924 were future England captain Percy Chapman and, another amateur, Charles ‘Father’ Marriott. Chapman was a superb athlete, who in time paid a heavy price for his good living. Marriott on the other hand was a schoolmaster who looked nothing like a top class sportsman. He was nonetheless a quality leg spinner who played in just a single Test, but took eleven wickets in it. Both men are the subject of a single book. Percy Chapman: A Biography came from the pen of David Lemmon in 1985 and from Marriott in 1968 there was The Complete Leg Break Bowler, part instructional and part autobiography.

Wicketkeeper Les Ames played for Kent for quarter of a century after his debut in 1926, giving way as far as the keeping was concerned to Godfrey Evans after the war. Both of these two England greats have been the subject of books, two for Ames and four for Evans. Ames’ autobiography, Close of Play appeared in 1953 and he was the subject of a biography by Alan Hill in 1990. For Evans there were, in the great post war book boom, as many as three autobiographies; Behind The Stumps in 1951, Action in Cricket in 1956 and The Gloves Are Off in 1960. A biography by Christopher Sandford appeared at the same times as that of Ames, 1990.

In 1946 Oxford Blue Tony Pawson made his Kent debut and, over the next seven years, enjoyed some success as a batsman. Pawson was also a useful footballer and a champion fly fisherman. After a career in journalism he published an autobiography in 1980, Runs and Catches, and then another one in 2005, Indelible Memories.

And then we had the Kent batsman who has inspired more books than anyone else, Colin Cowdrey. Two books were avowedly autobiographical, the first the rather modest Time For Reflection in 1962 and the second, MCC: The Autobiography of a Cricketer, a much better book, in 1975. As for biographies there are three. In 1990 Ivo Tennant wrote The Cowdreys, which in the main is concerned with Colin, in 1999 Mark Peel wrote The Last Roman and, finally to date, Andy Murtagh produced Gentleman and Player in 2017.

David Sayer was a fast bowler who played for Kent from the mid 1950s to 1970. His record is a good one even if he never was selected for a Test match and his biography, Slayer, written by his long time friend Ian Lambert, appeared in 2018, a year after Sayer’s death.

In the 1960s a group of Kent players came together that was, through the 1970s, to be one of the strongest in English cricket. The opening batsmen were Brian Buckhurst and Mike Denness, England players both, the latter as captain. Both wrote autobiographies. The title of that by Denness was I Declare, published in 1977 whilst he was still playing. Luckhurst’s book, From Bootboy to President, had a rather longer gestation period, being published in 2004. In respect of Denness a full biography appeared only last year, The Tale of the Scottish Dexter, self published by Andrew Bee.

With the ball the 1970s side had the metronomic Derek Underwood whose bowling was always controlled and, on a helpful wicket, unplayable. Perhaps one day Underwood will treat us to a long look back at his life, or alternatively an experience biographer will go for him as a subject. As it is we have only his own 1975 effort, Beating The Bat. A lot happened to ‘Deadly’ after that.

The name of Alan Knott is synonymous with that of Underwood, and one of the great wicketkeepers started his Kent career a year after Underwood, in 1964. A Test debut came for Knott in 1967 and his first autobiography, Stumper’s View, was published in 1972. A second, It’s Knott Cricket, came thirteen years later but otherwise, as with Underwood, the cricket world still awaits a definitive account of Knott’s life.

There were also a couple of all-rounders in that great Kent side, both of whom played Test cricket, John Shepherd for West Indies and Bob Woolmer for England. Shepherd played for Kent for fifteen seasons and in 2009 his career was marked by the publication of John Shepherd: The Loyal Cavalier, an early volume in the ACS Lives in Cricket series by Paddy Briggs. As for Woolmer he penned two autobiographies, Pirate and Rebel in 1984 and Woolmer on Cricket in 2000.

The power of the great Kent sight was starting to wane a little by the late 1970s but there were still some good days left for another Cowdrey, Christopher, to enjoy. He is in part the subject of Ivo Tennant’s book already mentioned in the context of his father, and towards the end of his own playing career he wrote an autobiography, Good Enough?

Also making his debut for Kent in 1977 was a young fast bowler, Graham Dilley, who went on to play a number of Tests for England albeit never quite fulfilling early expectations. After nine years with Kent Dilley moved on to Worcestershire for the 1987 season and that year published an autobiography, Swings and Roundabouts.

Only one man who first played for Kent in the 1980s has been the subject of a book and that is Steve Marsh, who was the poor soul who had to replace Alan Knott in 1986. Never quite his predecessor’s equal Marsh was still a fine wicketkeeper batsman and, for two seasons, county captain. His autobiography was published in 2001 – its title was The Gloves are Off, one we have heard before.

Current National Selector Ed Smith made his debut for Kent in 1996, and left for Middlesex in 2004, the year an autobiography, Off And On The Field, was published. A couple of years after Smith began his career Rob Key followed him to the Kent side where he remained until 2015. ‘Oi Key’ was published in 2020, and is an excellent book, despite its not particularly attractive title.

As far as collections of pen portraits are concerned there are two. The first was Dean Hayes Kent Cricketing Greats, that appeared in 1990. A book in the Tempus 100 Greats series followed in 2006. There were three authors of that one, David Robertson, Howard Milton and Derek Carlaw, and the same trio were behind the Fifty of the Finest Matches series as well, in 2005 and 2006. Switch John Evans for Howard Milton and you have the team who put together the Images of Sport volume on Kent in 2000.

Much as we here at Cricketweb don’t believe in electronic books there is one that merits mention, a mighty ‘tome’ from Derek Carlaw, the 555 page Kent County Cricketers A-Z that appeared, free to all, on the ACS Website in 2019. The project will eventually embrace a biography of all who have played for the county. Those 555 pages take the story to 1914.

And, to finish, there are three more Kentish titles that I will mention. The first is 66 Years Memories of Kent Cricket by Charles Igglesden that was published in 1947. It is a series of short essays, some just a paragraph or two, from one of the county’s loyal supporters. Next of the trio is Clive Porter’s 1981 published The White Horse And The Kangaroo which, as the title suggests, is a look at Kent’s contests with the Australians. Finally is the 2006 published A Legend Dies by David Robertson. The book is a tribute to the famous Lime Tree which, for as long as anyone could remember, had until a storm felled it in January 2005, stood just inside the boundary at the St Lawrence ground in Canterbury.

Which brings me to my two choices for Kentish historians. The first is easy, and that is a full biography of the remarkable AJ Evans, a man awarded the Military Cross for his exploits in the air in the Great War, who then had a bar added to it for his remarkable escapes as a prisoner of war. The second is not such a straightforward choice but, after much consideration, I choose a biography of one of the county’s overseas player. Despite that tag Asif Iqbal spent a decade and a half with the county, and if that doesn’t make him an honorary Kentish Man then Farokh Engineer must be Indian.

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