by Chris Waters
For the players and supporters of Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire, a rest day now followed, along with a choice of entertainments that Saturday evening. Leeds Hippodrome was showing Whose Baby Are You? – “a screamingly funny revue featuring Jimmy James”; Leeds Coliseum was screening Charlie Chan’s Chance, starring Warner Oland, while The New Manor had Lon Chaney, aka “The Man of a Thousand Faces”, in The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Local nightspots swayed to such numbers as “Ain’t Misbehavin’” and “Goodnight, Sweetheart”, while Sir Barry Jackson, founder of the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, was holding court at Leeds Eyebrow Club with his meditations on the Malvern Festival. But if the cinema, popular music or theatrical reflections were not to one’s palate, there was always the option of tuning into North Regional Radio, frequency 479.2, where “the great George Hirst” was to make a special appeal on behalf of Huddersfield Royal Infirmary followed by “one or two cricketing reminiscences”.
5
Stormy Weather
THE WRONG KIND OF CRICKET
Notts in the doldrums
3 for 0 finish by Leyland
NOTTS “TAIL” TO THE RESCUE
All-day struggle at 40 runs an hour
Failure of the “reliables”
NOTTS COULD HAVE DONE WITH GEORGE GUNN
“Slow motion” in the vital Yorkshire game
No excitement, and not a laugh until Larwood goes in!
The newspaper headlines said it all following the start to the fixture at Headingley. Writers who’d commend the thrilling finish initially condemned the tedious beginning, which offered no sign of the drama to follow. While most correspondents said Yorkshire bowled well, particularly Maurice Leyland with his “Chinese” concoctions, the general feeling was the catching had been ropy and the Nottinghamshire batting positively dopey. For Arthur Carr and the visiting players, the column inches made for as uncomfortable reading as their own batting made for uninteresting viewing. Frank Stainton, of the Leeds Mercury, felt Nottinghamshire “sinned against a glorious summer’s day” and said it had been “utter boredom for a magnificent crowd of 16,000 spectators”. Corney, of the Nottingham Journal, said he could “scarcely believe Notts could carry patience so far” and described it as “tortoise cricket”. Corney added: “Cricket is a strange game. On the same ground two years ago, I believe Bradman made a century before lunch all by himself. And that was in a Test match!” Some of the strongest criticism came from Frederick Elam, a batsman who’d played briefly for Yorkshire at the turn of the century. In his Yorkshire Evening Post column, Elam said he’d gone to Headingley after reading of the thrilling win against Gloucestershire at Bradford in the hope there might be “something similar” only to return home “a disappointed and disillusioned man”. He went on: “There were one or two thrills at first, that of the partially-dislodged bail being unique in my experience, and another at the end, when Maurice Leyland’s ‘dollies’ polished off the last three batsmen in about 10 minutes. In between these two extremes all the rest was deadly dull. The Notts batsmen were there, not to score runs, but to wear down the bowling. Runs were merely incidental and hardly seemed to be an important part of the game.” Elam said the pitch gave the bowlers “not the least assistance” and thought the outfield “as fast as a billiard table”. He added that the vast crowd was the “quietest” of the season. “Like the Yorkshire bowlers, they took their medicine – and it was nasty stuff – with hardly a murmur. Imagination boggles at what would have been said at Bramall Lane. Brighter cricket! When shall we get it if the third county in the Championship table can send us to sleep like this?”
Amid the chorus of condemnation, only The Times took a contrary view. “Such a rate of scoring – 234 runs in six hours – argues a dull day’s cricket, but as a matter of fact the Yorkshire out-cricket was so aggressive and militant and the batsmen had to fight so hard for their runs that there was barely a dull minute from beginning to end.”
Notwithstanding the consensus the cricket was prosaic, some 5,000 spectators were present for the start of day two – a beautifully sunny Monday morning. The temporary members’ enclosure was already packed, and by noon the seats at the Kirkstall Lane end would all be taken, the crowd eventually climbing to 14,000. It was the school holidays and, in those days, children were allowed to sit on the grass beside the boundary, savouring their sandwiches and bottles of pop in proximity to heroes like Hedley Verity. The man himself would oblige autograph hunters with a cheerful smile and a careful signature, recognising such kindness would make their day and remain imprinted on their memories for life. According to the Nottingham Guardian, there was “quite a Test match atmosphere” inside the ground as the clock ticked down to the 11.30 start. There was “an audible hum of expectant chatter” and “a sea of cloth caps and broad brimmed hats”. Folk were snapping up 2d score-cards, which advertised everything from lemonade to car insurance, while cushion sellers were in high demand, their products softening the rough wooden benches. Newspaper vendors were hard at work too, moving among the mounting masses with the early edition of the Yorkshire Evening Post, which led on a heart-rending story from Europe.
In the grey light of dawn, the shadow of death stalked through the deserted streets of the little Romanian town of Isaccea, and struck cold fear to the hearts of the inhabitants. Twenty-five escaped lepers had invaded the town. During the night, a group of starving men, ridden with the “grey plague”, and in the last stages of this most dreadful disease, broke out of the Tichilesti leper station and made for the lights of the unsuspecting town. They carried death by inches in their hands. The news of the leper invasion spread like wildfire, and very soon the whole town was panic-stricken. All the inhabitants locked and barricaded their doors, and white faces peered from behind shutters on the terrible band of death. The lepers were in an appalling condition. Wearing the rags of their isolation uniforms, they dragged their tired feet through the deserted streets, hammered on the closed doors, and cried for food. At last a cordon of police was drawn round them, and their plight was explained. It appeared that the leper station had been without food or money for several weeks. The station doctor had left for Bucharest ten days before to get help, but he had never returned. Dying of thirst and starvation, twenty-five of the lepers broke out of the compound and made for Isaccea in search of food. The police at once instituted isolation measures. A supply of food and money was collected from the terrified inhabitants, and in the evening the ghastly band was escorted back to the station under a heavy guard. The dying men looked for the last time on the world they were about to leave, and then withdrew within the grey walls of the terrible prison where fate had ordained that they should spend their lives – waiting for a terrible death by inches.
As well as the import of the fixture at Headingley, the sun-soaked weather and effect of the holidays, there was another reason for the sizeable crowd – the presence of Nottinghamshire duo Harold Larwood and Bill Voce. As the players and umpires took to the field, greeted by “a surge of enthusiastic applause”, Larwood went to the Kirkstall Lane end and began to pace out his 20-yard run. Facing him was the backdrop of a building site that had changed significantly since Saturday’s play. Not only were some of the stand’s high girders now in place, but a canvas screen some 50 yards long had been erected to cover the sight of the workmen, who were once more toiling in 80-degree temperatures. Amid the clank of steel and churn of cement mixers, Larwood hared down the hill to bowl the opening ball of the Yorkshire reply. It was devastatingly quick and missed Percy Holmes’s off stump by a whisker, prompting a collective gasp from the crowd. Holmes jammed down on the second delivery and squirted it out to leg for a single. It brought Herbert Sutcliffe on strike for his first innings after his 100th hundred.
Sutcliffe had got to the ground early that morning, keen for a spot of extra practice. After checking the field in stately fashion, like a monarch inspecting the Household Division, he settled down to face his first ball. Larwood put every ounce of effort into
it and Sutcliffe edged a delivery that pitched a foot outside off stump into the bucket hands of Voce at third slip. At once the crowd was stunned into silence. Sutcliffe walked diagonally past Voce and back to the pavilion after suffering the rarity of a golden duck. The Yorkshire Post felt Sutcliffe “put out a defensive bat which looked strangely uncertain”, while the Yorkshire Evening News insisted it was “almost incredible to think that Sutcliffe could be dismissed without scoring, and still more so that it should happen first ball. However, it is the unexpected that gives cricket its charm, and that is all we need to say about it.” Above the horrified hush of home supporters, the Nottingham Guardian said a lone voice cried out: “Good old Harold!”
Sutcliffe invariably followed the same routine after being dismissed. He’d have a wash, a rub down, and dress methodically before carefully producing his leather writing case. As the cricket unfolded, he’d sit in a quiet corner of the dressing room and attend to letters in immaculate hand. Occasionally, he’d look up and ask: “How are we doing?” The answer, on this occasion, would not have been favourable, for when the score had reached 15 Yorkshire lost Arthur Mitchell, their No. 3, when Larwood dealt him a sickening blow. Mitchell, who’d made an unbeaten 177 to set up the victory over Gloucestershire three days earlier, was trying to dodge a bouncer when the ball hit the back of his right hand with “a resounding crack”. He immediately dropped his bat and was forced to retire. Bright Heyhirst, the Yorkshire masseur, quickly reported that nothing was broken but said the nerves in Mitchell’s fingers were so deadened he couldn’t even feel the bat, let alone grip it.
In those days, batsmen had scant protection against quicker bowlers. There were no helmets or grilles in the 1930s, while pads and gloves were pitifully flimsy. Some of Larwood’s opponents resorted to shoving bath towels down their trousers as makeshift thigh pads or under their shirts as improvised rib guards. It was like trying to cushion a sub-machine gun. Despite his relatively tiny frame, Larwood touched speeds of 100mph. In the 30s, bowlers could also drag their back foot before releasing the ball, provided part of the foot landed behind the stumps, meaning Larwood could get a yard or two closer to the batsman, who had less time to react than modern players facing similar speeds. So smooth and soundless was his lightning run-up, the umpire Frank Chester once claimed he didn’t realise Larwood had come on to bowl until he was right beside him. Joe Hardstaff junior nicknamed his team-mate “The Silent Killer” and said he was at his lethal best when you couldn’t hear him running in at all.
“The Silent Killer”: Harold Larwood in full flow.
With hindsight, it is remarkable that “The Silent Killer” did not indeed kill anyone given the vulnerability of batsmen in a helmet-free era. Fractures and flesh wounds were common in fixtures involving Nottinghamshire – particularly in the summer of 1932. Only a week before injuring Mitchell at Headingley, Larwood had drawn blood from the left cheek of Indian tail-ender Joginder Singh during the Trent Bridge tour match, causing a trip to hospital. Earlier, Voce had bet Larwood “a pint of beer or a packet of fags” that he couldn’t dislodge Singh’s turban, which was duly sent in the direction of the slips. The terrors of Larwood and Voce would intensify just three weeks after the 10 for 10 game. When Nottinghamshire met Surrey at The Oval, the fast bowlers – along with Arthur Carr – would discuss strategy for the winter tour to Australia with the Surrey and England captain Douglas Jardine in the Grill Room of London’s Piccadilly Hotel. Jardine would ask Larwood if he could bowl leg stump and make the ball “come up into the body” to compel Don Bradman to play his shots to leg. “Yes, I think that can be done,” Larwood would reply, before spending the rest of the summer, along with Voce, trying “leg theory” on county batsmen.
In reality, types of Bodyline had been going on for years but were never fully channelled prior to Jardine. Voce had aimed in-swingers at the 1930 Australians at Trent Bridge, while Herbert Sutcliffe reckoned Yorkshire had faced fast leg-theory from Nottinghamshire for several seasons before 1932 – and proudly added that no one was allowed to back away. One man who never did that was Percy Holmes, who was renowned for his bravery against faster bowlers. Although closer to 50 years old than 40, Holmes withstood all Larwood could throw at him that Monday at Headingley with the fearlessness of someone half his age. Less than a fortnight earlier, Holmes had made what would be the last of his seven Test appearances against India at Lord’s – India’s first Test match and England’s solitary Test of the 1932 season, for which Hedley Verity was not selected. After Holmes and Sutcliffe – plus Test debutant Bill Bowes – arrived in the capital in the early hours after a late finish to Yorkshire’s match against Sussex at Leeds, the weary Holmes was bowled for six as England slid to 19 for three before recording a comfortable victory. Holmes would have played more for England but for the celebrated union of Sutcliffe and Jack Hobbs, which between 1924 and 1930 realised 15 century stands in 38 innings and 3,249 runs at 87. Although nearing the end of his career in 1932, and increasingly plagued by back and knee trouble, Holmes was still capable of class performances; in addition to his 224 not out in the 555 stand with Sutcliffe at Leyton, he’d scored 80s in the subsequent three Championship games before Nottinghamshire’s visit.
According to the Yorkshire Evening Post, Larwood was bowling “ever so fast” on a pitch that had quickened due to the heat. Such was the speed of his sprint to the crease, Dick Moulton, the Headingley groundsman, had to remove tufts of turf scraped up by the bowler in his delivery stride. This caused a lengthy delay that disturbed the focus of Maurice Leyland, who was out soon after. Voce bowled him for five to leave Yorkshire in trouble at 37 for two. Leyland, who famously said that “none of us likes fast bowling, but some of us don’t let on”, was late on a ball that took middle stump and in the midst of a sterile season. The exception had been an innings of 189 against Middlesex at Sheffield a fortnight earlier, when he’d shared in a Yorkshire record second-wicket partnership of 346 with Wilf Barber, who made 162. It was Leyland’s solitary century of the season but he’d bounce back with another four in August and the small matter of 1,013 runs in that month alone. It would inspire Wisden to declare that he “thoroughly rehabilitated his repu-tation as one of the leading batsmen of the day”.
Leyland’s wicket was just reward for Voce, who’d backed up Larwood from the Rugby Stand end. The pair were blood brothers on and off the field, and as junior partner in the frightening firm, Voce was subservient over choice of ends. Broad and big-muscled, with a 16-pace run-up, Voce was around six inches taller than Larwood but not as quick. However, he was still sharp enough to have sent Somerset batsman Cecil “Box” Case’s bat flying out of his hands and on to the stumps earlier that year, the confused Case walking back to the pavilion clutching a stump instead of his bat. Voce had a whippy action and could dig the ball back into the ribs. It was his signature and the perfect foil for Larwood’s straighter line. Like all great partnerships they worked together, helping generate wickets for each other. They also exerted psychological pressure over players who, if not physically bowled out, were often freaked out.
Bill Voce – junior partner in Nottinghamshire’s frightening pace bowling firm.
After Larwood and Voce’s early incursions, Carr called on the brothers Staples, who were not so lethal in the lead-up to lunch. Holmes (60) and Barber (27) steadied the ship to steer Yorkshire into the break at 110 for two – just 124 behind – and well placed to forge a significant lead. Only once was Holmes’s poise disturbed – ironically not by the bowlers but by the sound of workmen building the new stand. Fed-up with the constant clanging and crashing, which several times shattered his concentration, Holmes complained to umpire Harry Baldwin, who went behind the canvas screen to ask the foreman to keep down the noise. Holmes was normally a cheerful fellow; it was down to him that the Yorkshire side of the 1930s was known as “The Circus”. Arriving late one night at the team hotel, the players found that a clerical error had left them without rooms. “The rooms are wanted fo
r somebody and his circus,” explained the hotel receptionist. “Well, they are wanted for Percy Holmes and his circus,” the batsman insisted, and signed the register to that effect.
The morning sunshine had disappeared when the players returned for the afternoon session. Clouds had gathered in thundery skies and the heat had turned fiercely oppressive. The climactic change suited Larwood, who resumed the attack from the Kirkstall Lane end. He now found the weapon of cut through the air to transform the mood and complexion of the match. After Holmes added five to his lunchtime score, Larwood sent his middle stump “dancing fantastically”. Holmes hit seven boundaries – four of them off Larwood – and was beaten for pace as he aimed towards leg. His dismissal, which left him on 999 runs for the season, ended a stand of 85 with Barber, who was reprieved on 34 in the same over. Larwood located the outside edge but Voce spilled a difficult chance at third slip.
The setback was temporary. After Brian Sellers was bowled for his third duck in five innings, playing too soon at Arthur Staples’s slower ball and with a horizontal bat, Barber fell in Larwood’s next over without adding to his score to leave Yorkshire 125 for five. Barber gave Larwood a hard-hit return but felt he’d been the victim of a bump ball. The orthodox Barber, whom Bill Bowes thought more of a textbook player than Len Hutton, and who never considered his own efforts worthy, received a sympathetic hand as he left the field. Barely had the ovation subsided when loud cheers rang out for Arthur Mitchell, who unexpectedly resumed his innings against the man who’d forced him to retire hurt. Larwood surveyed his quarry with gimlet eye and predictably greeted Mitchell with another short ball. Equally predictably, it struck Mitchell’s bad hand, drawing oohs and aahs from the crowd and a cold grin from Larwood, for whom Mitchell’s return was a red rag to a bull. After removing his glove and wringing his hand, Mitchell indicated he was fit to continue, drawing further cheers. Thereafter, he seemed to wince every time the ball hit his bat.