Looking back again

posted by John Winn

Two weeks ago in a posting entitled 'More Green Shoots' I struck an optimistic tone when looking forward to the start of league cricket next month. Since then we all know what has happened and although at the moment the professional game has been postponed until the end of May there are many that believe that the 2020 English season will live in history as the season when there was no cricket. Rather than indulge in speculation as to the likelihood of there being any cricket in any form I have turned to the past for material for this posting.

The inspiration for today's content came from a wonderful article in yesterday's Observer by Kevin Mitchell much of which focussed on the 1939 season when play was curtailed by the outbreak of World War Two in September of  and the West Indies, who were the tourists that year went home immediately after the third and last test finished on August 22nd leaving seven matches not played. Mitchell's article is accompanied with a photograph of the West Indies taking the field at Gravesend led by skipper RS Grant. At first I assumed that their opponents on this occasion would be Kent but research reveals that it was in fact the first match of the tour against Les Ames' XI, a side composed of mainly Kent county players. The match against the full Kent side which would have been at Canterbury was one of the seven games not played.

The match played on May 3rd was drawn but gave some batsmen on both sides to make useful early season runs. Ames hit 116 in 85 minutes and who wouldn't have loved to see Frank Wooley's 59. Ames declared when his side had made 278 for 6 off 36 overs and the visitors replied with 225 for 3. They moved on to play The Army at Aldershot the following day where a low scoring match was won by two wickets. An interesting point about the Gravesend match is that both Learie Constantine and George Headley did not bat. Headley finished the tour with 1745 runs at 72.20 and topped the test match averages with 334 at 66.80. Constantine had 103 wickets including 11 in tests.

Rolph Grant opened the batting in all three tests with Jeff Stollmeyer but averaged under twenty in five knocks. Finding a good opening partnership was a problem for the West Indies on this tour. The Jamaican Ivan Barrow failed to find form, scoring only 304 runs in 25 innings and not once reaching fifty. Barrow did have his better days for in 1933 he had become the first West Indian to score a test century in England (105 at Old Trafford). Stollmeyer's brother Victor was also pencilled in to open but suffered from several bouts of tonsillitis and played in only one test, the third at The Oval, where batting at four he made 96.

Grant was the younger of two brothers, both Cambridge blues and he took over the captaincy from his older brother Jackie. Jackie's  selection as skipper was unusual in that he was not a member of the team and both brothers largely owed the honour of captaincy to their race at a time when it was considered essential for the post to be held by a white man, a situation that prevailed until the appointment of Frank Worrell in the 1950s. Whatever their limitations as cricketers both Grant brothers were talented all round sportsmen and I shall return to their wider lives in a future posting. In the meantime 'keep your distance'.