Delighted to see Brian Sanderson back in action on the blog. I was immediately fascinated by his team picture of a wartime match at Lord's which features three Yorkshire players Brian Sellars, Maurice Leyland and Harry Halliday, who he wrote about. I also managed to identify Jack Robertson of Middlesex, third from left on the back row and C.H. Palmer, then of Worcestershire, is the man in glasses.
I must admit to being stumped by the rest of the side, although one or two looked vaguely familiar. However this set me off to try and track down what the team was and who they were playing against at Lord's. I was aware that an England XI played the Australian Services XI in several games at Lord's but this did not look quite good enough for an England side. The clue of course lay in the two uniformed officers on the picture who were quite plainly in the Army.
I started my search on the wonderful Cricket Archive website which has full scorecards of important games played during the war years (and every other year for that matter). I started looking at matches in 1945 and soon found out that Robertson and Halliday were fairly regular performers for the Army XI, but could find no trace of Sellars or Leyland.
I then ploughed my way through matches played in 1944 and found that there were rather a lot of them, much to my surprise. However, shortly before I got to the end of the season, I struck gold with the full scorecard of a one day match between the Army and the Royal Navy at Lord's on 19th August 1944.
The Army batted first and opened with Robertson and Halliday. At number three was R.H. (Dick) Moore who had captained Hampshire for two seasons just before the war and is probably the distinguished looking gentleman on the left of the front row in Brian's picture. I believe he still holds the record for the highest Hampshire individual score of 316 against Warwickshire in 1937.
Number four was Yorkshire's Maurice Leyland who top scored with 33. The bespectacled Charlie Palmer followed with 21, but the remaining batsman including Yorkshire captain Brian Sellars, footballer Reg Halton and Essex leg spinner Cecil Boswell were dismissed by two youngsters in the Navy ranks Trevor Bailey and Tony Mallett.
The last three in the order also fell cheaply. They were 'Tim' Warr, who kept wicket for Oxford University early in the 1930s, Len Wilkinson leg break bowler for Lancashire and England and at number eleven 'Hopper' Levett, Kent and one match for England as wicket keeper in 1934. The Army were bowled out for 153. 20 year old Trevor Bailey taking 5-45 for the Navy.
Len Wilkinson, who had impressed during the 1938 season with 151 wickets for Lancashire and toured South Africa with England the following winter, was very unlucky to have his career cut short not only by the war but by several injury problems. His county career ended in 1947 and I remember seeing him play as professional for Morecambe a few years later.
The Navy in reply made only 123-4 in just 32 overs and the match was drawn, possibly the weather intervened. Brian Sellars in the unusual position for him as opening bowler took 3-17 with Mallett 57 not out and Ken Cranston of Lancashire, who would play for England in 1947, 26 not out. So rather an unsatisfactory finish to the game, but some interesting characters taking part.
Reg Halton, who only played cricket for Staffordshire, was better known as a footballer, playing wing half for Bury, Chesterfield and Leicester City after the war. He guested for Arsenal in their game with Moscow Dynamo in 1945. Anthony 'Tim' Warr was a pupil and teacher at Leeds Grammar School. He was better known as a rugby union winger, who played for Old Leodensians, Wakefield, Yorkshire and England (2 caps in 1934).
Halton is second from the right on the back row, Halliday third from right and probably Levett is fourth from right. Of the others I am not sure. All interesting stuff and thanks to Brian for producing such a great photograph.
1 comment:
The 1945 Wisden has a photo of the Navy XI but not the Army team, John Winn
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