One or two questions remain.

 posted by John Winn

With a dreary day in prospect today but sunshine forecast for tomorrow I thought I would try and provide the answers to the puzzle I set on Friday, namely to decipher the signatures in these photographs. 

Let's start with Yorkshire. Most of these are pretty clear and match up with the eleven that played against Warwickshire at Middlesbrough in 1957 when the team in batting order was 

Lowson, Close, Wilson Padgett, Watson, Sutcliffe, Illingworth, Wardle, Trueman, Binks and Platt. All except Binks and Platt are relatively easy to identify and it seems that wicketkeeper Binks for some reason did not sign. This leaves us with just two 'graphs' Ron Burnet, presumably there in his role as second team captain and AN Other, between Burnet and Padgett. It takes a giant leap of the imagination helped by a couple of gin and tonics to think that this might be Robert Kenworthy Platt. If like me you thought the surname ended in 'land' then we are no further forward for  nobody with those four letters at the end of the surname played for Yorkshire that season, either at first or second team level. 

Moving on to Warwickshire who certainly give value for money with some players having signed twice. 

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The eleven that wore the bear with the ragged staff on their sweaters, and they probably needed them at Middlesbrough in May, was as follows ( in batting order)

Gardner, Horner, Smith, Townsend, Wolton, Spooner, Singh, Ibadullah, Bannister, Thompson and Hollies. All of these except skipper MJK Smith are recognisable and if push came to shove I would say it is not impossible that his might be the scrawl in the bottom right hand corner above the signature in red ink. In addition to the selected eleven we have Shirley Griffiths, WJ Stewart, CW Leach, Ray Weeks* and Tom Cartwright, a large squad indeed. This leaves us with the red ink in the bottom right hand corner which has me stumped. 

The match itself was 'seriously interfered' with by rain, the third day was washed out entirely, but with points on offer for first innings lead some interest was added to the game. Trueman's pace was too much for Warwickshire's batsmen on the first day when his 6 for 46 largely accounted for their dismissal for 142. Yorkshire fared little better and at one point were 111 for 6 until a stand of 58 between Illingworth and Binks gathered the two points, Illingworth finishing on 54 not out, the only fifty of the match. Only eleven overs were possible in Warwickshire's second innings. For the record Surrey were champions at the end of  the season with Yorkshire third. If asked to guess the runners up you probably wouldn't say Northants, but if you did you would be right. Warwickshire faded after a bright start under new skipper, MJK, and finished eleventh. 

* At times Wisden includes an e in Weeks'  (Weekes) but eventually came to accept that the left arm spinner could spell his own name and by the time of his obituary following his death in 2013. had settled on Weeks.