by Chris Waters
“As grim as a piece of stone from Baildon Moor” – the uncompromising Arthur Mitchell, who was cheered to the echo when he bravely resumed his innings after being hit by Harold Larwood.
Mitchell’s toughness was legendary. Not only did he symbolise Yorkshire grit, the ability to withstand hurdles and hardship, he was as harsh and hard-nosed as they come. Mitchell despised frippery or frivolity of any description, considering it weakness. When his Yorkshire team-mate Ellis Robinson took a brilliant diving catch, the acclaim of the crowd ringing in his ears, Mitchell barked: “Gerrup, tha’s makkin an exhibition o’thisen.” Len Hutton described Mitchell as “too hard for me”, while Herbert Sutcliffe said he was “as grim as a piece of stone from Baildon Moor”. Mitchell had added three to his earlier 11 when the skies darkened further and rain forced the teams off with Yorkshire 128 for five. The delay lasted 20 minutes, the sixth wicket falling in the first over after the restart when Larwood bowled Arthur Wood for one. When Voce had Arthur Rhodes caught at short-leg off another short ball, Yorkshire had lost five for 13 and the total was 135 for seven. Into this cauldron of concern walked Hedley Verity.
Verity batting against Sussex at Hove one month after the 10 for 10 match. Yorkshire beat Sussex by 167 runs to clinch the Championship.
Verity was a competent batsman who could normally be relied on to hold up an end. R. C. Robertson-Glasgow said “a casual observer might have mistaken Verity for Sutcliffe a little out of form, for he seemed to have caught something of that master’s style and gesture”. Robertson-Glasgow added that both men could be “clean bowled in a manner that somehow exonerated the batsman from all guilt”. Like Wilfred Rhodes, Verity would open the batting for England, and he’d finish with a first-class average of 18 and a top score of 101 for Yorkshire against Jamaica at Sabina Park in 1936. In Larwood, Verity faced an opponent for whom he had the utmost regard. Verity felt it would be “well-nigh impossible” to improve on Larwood’s action and admired the “easy yet straight and fast run” and the way, as he entered his delivery stride, Larwood “seemed to be trying to grow taller before arm and body swept through, putting his last ounce behind the delivery to complete a beautiful effort”. Verity should have fallen to Larwood when he had four and the total was 140 but wicketkeeper Ben Lilley – hampered by a strained tendon in his right instep suffered while batting – dropped him, the catch so straightforward that umpire Bill Reeves raised his finger only to retract it when the ball went to ground. Lilley regarded injuries as an occupational hazard; at the end of each season, he’d say his fingers ached so much from keeping to Larwood that he had to boil them in water to loosen the joints.
Verity scrapped and scraped his way to 12 before Larwood beat him with a ball that sent one of the bails flying “quite 15 yards”. The Times said “Verity’s stroke suggested he had lost sight of the ball altogether”. Verity was Larwood’s fifth victim and his dismissal left Yorkshire 152 for eight. It was Larwood’s sixth five-wicket haul in eight innings – the high-water mark of a season that would be his best in wicket-taking terms. Mitchell’s brave resistance ended when he was run out for 24 by partner George Macaulay, who played Larwood in the direction of mid-off and called for a single in his apparent anxiety to get off strike. Spotting the swooping Willis Walker, Macaulay stopped, changed his mind and sent back Mitchell, who was beaten by a direct hit. Macaulay edged two lucky fours off Larwood – and last man Bill Bowes scratched a single – before bad light stopped play at 3.50 p.m., closely followed by rain so heavy it prevented a restart. Yorkshire were 163 for nine and Larwood had five for 73 from 22 overs, the Nottingham Evening News insisting he had “never bowled better” and “evidently he means to go to Australia”.
As Larwood rested in the pavilion, and as Yorkshire contemplated a deficit of 71, the outfield soon became submerged. What began as a day so beautiful that the Yorkshire Evening News said “women spectators wore the flimsiest of clothing and many of the men discarded their jackets and collars” now saw those same spectators inappropriately attired for the worsening weather. “Hats and frocks suffered grievously when the rain came,” reported Leeds Mercury columnist Frank North. “The most striking male fashion was that displayed by a young man near the scoreboard. I wondered whether he represented a hiker or a lifeboat man. When the storm broke, the answer was easy.” North added: “Cricket is a great game. It develops patience, determination and hardihood. That was obvious at Headingley. Hundreds of spectators refused to leave the ground after play stopped. Two hours later many were still there. The fact that spectators are willing to suffer thunder, lightning and drenching rain in order to see a few more overs bowled proves my contention that cricket is a great little game. For the rest, a little excitement was caused by a commissionaire chasing a youth halfway round the ground. The youth, it appears, had attempted to see the game without going through the formality of the turnstiles.”
The storm to which North referred was no ordinary downpour. Later that night, in the Broad Acres and beyond, the weather broke spectacularly after the weekend heatwave. In Leeds city centre, about a mile from the ground, an inch of rain fell in just over four hours and hailstones were sighted an inch in diameter. In Bradford, a labourer named Manfred Clough was killed by lightning, his clothing scorched and a boot torn off. Torrential rain fell in Dewsbury, where the local cinema was struck by lightning, causing plaster to fall on the audience and badly injuring a Rueben Ramsden, who was detained overnight in the local infirmary. Thousands of turnips were washed away in Pickering, while people on the outskirts of Leeds saw cows and goats swimming past a gasworks, the animals carried by the raging torrents. Among the worst hit areas was Barnoldswick, North Yorkshire, where the Ouzedale Foundry was all but destroyed. “Barnoldswick is a place of devastation,” reported the Yorkshire Evening News. “The majority of the town’s 4,000 cotton workers are out of work, and owners of a number of small businesses are to be seen sorting out the wreckage of their shop interiors.” Further afield, five inches of rain fell in less than three hours in Cranwell, Lincolnshire, extensive flooding was reported in Nottinghamshire, while lightning struck the roof of Leicester Stadium, hurling slates and tiles over 100 yards. The fuse box responsible for powering the stadium’s electric hare was burnt out – and the hare itself engulfed in flames.
It was all in dramatic contrast to the previous few days, when Britain had basked in scorching temperatures. In Croydon, a heat mist laden with millions of greenfly had been sighted near a local aerodrome, forcing cyclists to dismount and producing an effect resembling green-tinted smoke moving in the breeze. At London’s Fortune Theatre, Colonel F. A. Wilson, a member of the British College of Psychic Science, collapsed and died on stage due to the heat, his last words “truth will conquer in the end”. So boiling had it been in Blackpool that a young woman on the town’s Central Beach was forced to abandon a sponsored fast, the Yorkshire Post reporting:
Mrs Nellie Hayes, the 22-year-old Blackpool shop girl, who entered a barrel in an attempt to fast ten days and ten nights, has given up the attempt. She had been in the barrel 33 hours without food or water, but the reason she gave up was because of the excessive heat. As she left the barrel, Mrs Lily Jones, of Cardiff, aged 22, stepped into it to make a similar effort. She was shaded from the heat by a large umbrella.
Elsewhere on Monday 11 July, only 10 minutes’ play was possible at the Bath Festival, where Somerset advanced from 141 for three to 152 for three in reply to Glamorgan’s 110. There was no play after 2.50 at Blackheath, where Les Ames’s third successive century took Kent from 78 for one to 269 for six in response to Surrey’s 345. The final session was washed out at Northampton, where Wally Hammond (92) and Ces Dacre (76) lifted Gloucestershire to 245 for three and a lead of 368. And at Coventry, where Warwickshire were 58 for nought in their second innings, a lead of 118 against Leicestershire, there was no play after 3.30. There were interruptions too at Chesterfield, where Essex were 192 for eight after Derbyshire’s 487 for nine declared, and at
Southampton, where Hampshire were 51 for two in their second innings against Middlesex, 153 behind. Perversely, the only game not affected was in typically wet Manchester, where the Indians were 157 for four following-on – 81 adrift. As for the sides at Headingley, the most significant action came at Kidderminster, where Sussex swept to a two-day win over Worcestershire to climb above Nottinghamshire into third place. Only one run separated Sussex and Worcestershire on first innings, but after the hosts were dismissed for 111 second time round, Ted Bowley and captain Duleepsinhji steered the visitors to a nine-wicket triumph.
Sussex’s victory meant Nottinghamshire had to gain at least a draw at Leeds to reclaim third position. After their ponderous performance on the opening day, Carr’s men had fought back magnificently to seize the match by the scruff of the neck. However, their victory hopes now appeared dependent on the weather. Apart from a brief hiatus on Monday afternoon, when the covers were fleetingly removed in the hope of a 6.15 restart, it rained solidly in Headingley from 4.00 until midnight. Nor was Tuesday’s forecast promising. There were predictions of further showers and possibly longer periods of rain. For Hedley Verity and his Yorkshire team-mates, it seemed the elements might ride to their rescue. As the Yorkshire Post put it, “It will be hard luck for Notts if the rain continues to prevent any more play in this match in which the bowling of Larwood and Voce has given them such a big advantage.”
6
An Avalanche from Heaven
Given anything like strong sunshine it is just possible that some startling and dramatic cricket may be seen at Headingley. Rain fell in such quantities last night as to completely soak the wicket and, at twenty minutes to six, the proceedings were abandoned.
So proclaimed the Nottingham Guardian on the final morning of the 10 for 10 game. It would be even more prescient than the paper envisaged as Hedley Verity made cricketing history. The writer saw not the potential of a Yorkshire victory but the prospect of a famous Nottinghamshire win. If the visitors showed dash in their second innings – equipped with a handy first innings lead – they could declare and get Yorkshire in trouble on a sticky wicket if the sun dried the pitch.
That pitch had recovered remarkably well by the time the teams arrived at the ground. Although too damp for an 11.30 start, play was deemed possible from 12.30 in conditions that remained grey and gloomy. Only a few hundred had braved the weather, with the crowd also down at the Great Yorkshire Show, just 4,639 turning out at nearby Temple Newsam compared to 10,821 the previous year. Entries at the show comprised 569 pigeons, 157 pigs, 103 goats and 38 dairy cows including a British Friesian named Chaddesley Hedge Rose II, dubbed “The Wonder Cow” after five successes at the Royal Show.
Shortly before 12.30, the Yorkshire captain Brian Sellers went out to inspect the wicket with his team-mates Percy Holmes, Herbert Sutcliffe, Maurice Leyland and Arthur Wood. The quintet studied the surface closely, as though reading a map of buried treasure, and discussed their findings among themselves. Although Sellers was autocratic, he was never too proud to ask for advice and, before the toss, would often seek the views of Holmes and Sutcliffe followed by those of Verity and Bowes. Whenever Yorkshire won the toss, Bowes admitted he never knew whether Sellers had taken his and Verity’s counsel or that of the batsmen. The consequence of this discussion was that Sellers declared Yorkshire’s first innings closed at the overnight 163 for nine, thereby conceding a lead of 71 and first innings points to Nottinghamshire. In those days, sides gained five points for a first innings lead in a drawn game, three points if they had the lower first innings score in a drawn game, or 15 points for a win. Sellers thus sacrificed first innings points if the match finished drawn in an effort to win the contest outright. It was a clear challenge to Nottinghamshire captain Arthur Carr to set Yorkshire a target despite the danger of the hosts being ambushed.
Some newspapers hailed Sellers’s tactic an audacious gamble, one correspondent calling it a move that “fair took the breath away”. Although it showed his aggression and ambition to win, it was, in reality, no daring speculation. There was little hope of the innings lasting much longer, or of Yorkshire achieving first innings points. With just one wicket left and the hapless Bowes a shooting target, Sellers was actually risking little – particularly as some observers felt the overhead conditions might assist his quicker bowlers. However, the threadbare crowd applauded Sellers when Yorkshire took to the field with a new face on board – that of twelfth man Frank Dennis, deputising for the injured Arthur Mitchell, who watched from the pavilion with his damaged hand bandaged. Dennis, 25, a fast-medium bowler from Leeds and future brother-in-law of Len Hutton, was physically striking with a six-foot frame and barrel chest. He first played for Yorkshire in 1928 but only occasionally after 1930. In 1948, he’d emigrate to New Zealand to take up fruit farming before becoming a selector for the Canterbury Cricket Association.
As work on the Rugby Stand continued, with the cacophony of cement mixers providing an unholy soundtrack to this blessed sporting day, Bowes began the innings with a no-ball to Walter Keeton from the Kirkstall Lane end. The third ball of the over was short and Keeton, on to it in a flash, hooked it for four, defeating Holmes’s attempt to stop it on the boundary. The fifth ball was another half-tracker and Keeton this time hooked it for three, Holmes preventing another boundary with a fine diving stop. Yet that rush of runs was no barometer of intent as, much to Sellers’s frustration, Nottinghamshire declined his challenge to set up a game, their second innings settling into the soporific and plodding pattern of the first. The wicket, which was slow and low, encouraged neither strokemaking nor wicket-taking and Bowes battled in vain for an early breakthrough. “The fast bowler could get nothing out of the pitch,” reported the Yorkshire Post. “The ball did not move as had been thought likely.” George Macaulay, who opened from the Rugby Stand end, could get little out of it either and Nottinghamshire – on Carr’s command – betrayed contentment with first innings points as they doggedly set to bat out the draw. Amid the sequence of dead-bats and dot-balls, Shipston momentarily relieved the monotony, late-cutting Macaulay for four to the junction of the Western Terrace and Kirkstall Lane end. Shipston was enjoying his most prolific season, one that would bring 461 runs at 35.46, including hundreds against Hampshire and Glamorgan, but here he was cautious beneath cloudy skies. Keeton, whom R. C. Robertson-Glasgow called “strung-up, concentrated, quick-glancing”, was similarly watchful. In the corresponding fixture the following year, which Yorkshire would win by 10 wickets at Bradford, Keeton would hit a hundred before lunch and Verity would not take a wicket in the innings.
When the total at Headingley was 23, Sellers turned to his left-arm spinner, who replaced Macaulay at the Rugby Stand end. Macaulay followed Bowes at the Kirkstall Lane side and the cricket laboured in the lead-up to lunch. Verity’s seven overs prior to the break were maidens and although both he and Macaulay made the ball turn, they did not do so quickly enough to trouble the batsmen. Both Keeton and Shipston had 18 when Nottinghamshire dined on 38 for nought after an hour’s cricket of forgettable character. According to the Yorkshire Post, “Verity had asked to be hit at least twice every over” and “never looked like taking a wicket”. The paper added that each batsman had scored “almost as many runs as he had failed to get”, so ultra-defensive were Nottinghamshire’s tactics. The Yorkshire Evening Post said “the batsmen just contented themselves with letting the ball hit the bat”, while the Nottingham Evening Post remarked that “it was difficult to understand the attitude of the Notts’ batsmen”. As the Yorkshire Post observed: “The spectators had had the Notts’ caution impressed upon them and they were prepared for a wearying afternoon.”
Among the crowd was Verity’s father, who watched with a group of friends from Rawdon. Instinctively weighing the atmosphere and conditions, he told them: “You need not bother at all until Hedley brings up his second slip; then you can sit up and take notice.” Suddenly, one ball spun significantly after lunch and Holmes was summoned to reinfo
rce the cordon. Hazy sunshine began to break through and the drying surface started to bite. Verity’s first two overs after the interval were also maidens, giving him figures at that stage of 9-9-0-0. From the third ball of his 10th over, Shipston scored a lucky two, edging streakily over the slips. Verity’s next over was another maiden and he captured the first of his 10 wickets with the opening ball of his 12th over. Keeton, on 21, pushed forward and was caught at first slip by Macaulay, the ball turning quickly from an off stump line as Nottinghamshire slipped to 44 for one.
Verity’s pace was normally slow medium; on quicker pitches this rose to medium. He’d bowl faster whenever the pitch was turning and flight it more on a batsman’s wicket. On stickier surfaces like that at Leeds, he’d increase his speed and try to make the batsmen play. “Such is sticky wicket bowling par excellence,” he’d say, “the method adopted by all great spin bowlers when attacking with conditions in their favour.” At all times, regardless of conditions, Verity focused on finding good length. He called this “the secret of good bowling” and defined it as “the shortest length at which a batsman should play forward”. This, said Verity, was “the ABC of bowling”. He further believed the ideal left-arm spinner’s ball “pitches on a good length and turns quickly away to the off”, adding that “if it can be pitched on the leg and middle so much the better for then even the Bradmans and Sutcliffes are in trouble”.