By Brian Sanderson
In by last blog ,I wrote about Billy Sutcliffe first Championship
as Yorkshire captain. Today I am writing about Michael Crawford
first Championship match on the 15 August 1951 and he was
captain.
Michael Grove Crawford played for the Seconds from 1947 to
1953 as amateur and right hand batsman ,captained them in
1951 and was joint captain with Ronnie Burnet. He was invited
to captain the side at Scarborough against Worcestershire as
Norman Yardley was absent. This was his only first class
match for Yorkshire.
The Worcester players had to travel through the night by
coach and only arrived at 2 o'clock on Wednesday morning
so were pleased R.E.Bird,Worcester captain won the toss
and batted.There was a crowd of 8000 and at on stage
burst into a demonstration of slow hand clapping .Kenyon
declined to continue batting until given a signal by umpire
Emmott Robinson .The noise immediately subsided and the
crowd handsomely apologised for any bad manners when
Kenyon fell in the late evening lbw to Leadbeater by the
reception they gave him on his way back. He had scored
145 runs in five hours and 50 minutes out of a score of
271.
The next day Yorkshire were bowled out for 114 with
Perks taking six wickets for twenty nine runs.Worcester
did not enforce the follow on and scored 92 so setting
Yorkshire 250 to win and a run a minute.
Yorkshire had to get 12 points to keep their Championship
hopes alive .
Yorkshire looked like they were going to win wanting
31 runs in forty minutes and five wickets in hand.
Instead of gaining the victory , they collapsed against
the left arm slows of Howorth and were all out eight runs
short. Vic Wilson was last out scoring 94.
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