The faithful rewarded

Posted by John Winn

Non-cricketing activities take me to Cambridge three or four times a year and today is one such occasion. Sadly the university will not be playing at Fenners but last year I was there on a scorching hot Saturday and in some free time I was able to take in games in The East Anglian Premier League and the Cambridge and Huntingdonshire league. One of the latter games was being played on Parker's Piece, the 25 acre,almost square piece of ground, donated to the people of Cambridge for their recreation and sacred in cricketing lore as the place where Jack Hobbs, who was born in the city, first played organised cricket.
In one of my favourite cricket books,Ronald Mason's biography of Hobbs, the author describes how, in the summer of 1925, the paparazzi of the day followed the master batsman as he closed in on W. G. Grace's record number of centuries, 126.On the 21st of July Hobbs made 105 against Kent to stand one behind the doctor. It was to be exactly five weeks before he was to equal the record. Such was the interest in Hobbs that a newspaper placard descibed a 54 against Notts as 'Hobbs fails again'.
The 126th finally came against Somerset in front of packed crowd at Taunton, with cameramen perched on the pavilion roof.91 not out overnight on Saturday Hobbs equalled the record on Monday morning with a single wide of mid-wicket. At this point the circus left town and when Surrey batted for a second time after lunch on Tuesday Hobbs duly scored the 127th first class century of his career. This time it was in front of the proverbial 'three men and a dog'. In Mason's words 'the handful of cricket lovers, the unassuming faithful, the unvociferous, the dedicated...were privileged to see the 127th'. How fitting that it should be the 'professional cricket watcher' rather than the casual spectator who witnessed such an event.