Dimming of the Day

27 Opening Moves continued had peace prevailed is another matter. It has to be remembered that 1914 was not like 1939, and for most people war was nowhere on the horizon. In the first week of May 1914 the county season started fairly slowly, with two games beginning on 2 May. There was no start for first-class cricket in April (let alone March) in those more leisured days. Teams played between 20 and 28 matches in a full season, with the Championship decided on percentages, but, of course, there were no other distractions, and if your best players were picked to play in Gentlemen v Players you carried on with what was left. It would just be another year of championship cricket with few diversions. Everything seemed normal enough. The 1913 Championship had been won by Kent, who had won 20 of their 28 matches, losing only three. It had been a Championship won by bowlers, with slow left-arm bowler Colin Blythe taking 145 wickets at 15.54. Blythe had retired from international cricket because his nerves couldn’t stand it, but he was immensely effective at county level (and indeed at Test level when he could bring himself to play). The MCC team had returned from South Africa following a Test series won 4-0 (and it was seen as such, with South Africa having been given Test status following the formation of the Imperial Cricket Conference). That series had been entirely dominated by Sydney Barnes who had taken 49 wickets in four Tests before, entirely typically, refusing to play in the last one after some disagreement about finance. According to an interview he gave many years later the South African authorities had offered to ‘pass the hat round’ to help with his travel expenses, but had not done so 20 . Being Barnes he would not let it lie and in July we find that he had written to MCC about the matter, but the Committee decided that they were not inclined to put their hands in their pockets either. He had also missed the closing match against Western Province, presumably on his way home, as he had travelled with his wife separately from the rest of the party. Barnes, remarkably enough, was already too old at 41 to be accepted as a volunteer for Kitchener’s army, though he would go on taking wickets into the 1930s. In the meantime an Australian side had condescended to visit New Zealand, wiping up the home team by an innings and 113 runs at Auckland. Four Australians made hundreds, and Victor Trumper, in what was to be his last first-class innings, made 81. There was no indication at the time that this would be anything other than an ordinary domestic first-class season – no visiting touring side was expected except one from Egypt and the Sudan. Most of their records are now lost, but in July they played an MCC side at Lord’s: an MCC side of glittering social cachet but not great cricketing strength who beat them by an innings. And there were two tours from Philadelphia. The Merion Club was touring later in the summer, playing clubs and a couple of county club and ground sides and in June and July there was a tour from Haverford 20 Leslie Duckworth, S.F.Barnes – Master Bowler , Hutchinson , 1967