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51 With 549 first-class appearances between them before the Edgbaston game started, this side beat Warwickshire’s pre-match aggregate by a cool 517. But aggregating the players’ eventual total of first-class appearances, Warwickshire win by 915 to 637, suggesting that the overall balance of skill may have lain with the home side. In terms of age rather than experience Worcestershire had a clear edge, with an average age of 31y 244d (their side included four players in their 40s and three teenagers, with Dick Burrows the oldest at 48:60 and Cave-Rogers the youngest at 17:69) against Warwickshire’s 24y 296d (with only one player - Harris, 35:217 - over 30 and four teenagers, the youngest being Santall, just 23 days past his 16th birthday). On this evidence, you might have thought we were in for a reasonably close game … PLAY! The descriptions of play and the quotations in this section are all derived from the Birmingham Post unless stated. Complete scorecards of the two matches are included on pages 65 and 66. Warwickshire had had a ten-day break from first-class cricket when, on August Bank Holiday Monday 4 August 1919 their two teams began their battles with Derbyshire in the Championship at Derby, and against Worcestershire in a friendly at Edgbaston. As already mentioned, their season had not gone well so far – played ten, won none, drawn five, lost five. None of the defeats was even close: three were by an innings (including in their two most recent fixtures), and the other two were both by seven wickets. To be fair, two of the draws may be regarded as ‘winning draws’ – at Edgbaston on 24 June they had Surrey 90-6 in their second innings, needing 186 to win, when the end came; while the following match against Leicestershire at Hinckley ended with Warwickshire 9-0 in their second innings needing a total of 118 for victory. One of the other three draws, against Lancashire, was definitely a ‘losing draw’, while neither team had a clear ascendancy at the end of the other two. Derbyshire meanwhile were having a rather better season. On the morning of 4 August they stood sixth in the Championship table with three wins from ten games. Their wins included a seven-wicket success against Warwickshire at Edgbaston early in June, where Warwickshire’s first innings lead of 69 had been insufficient to avoid defeat in the face of fine pace bowling by Bill Bestwick (7-50 in Warwickshire’s second innings 155, to follow 5-103 in the first innings) and determined second innings batting that made light work of a target of 225. For Worcestershire the season was proving predictably difficult. They had begun with a commendable draw against Gloucestershire towards the end of June, a late declaration setting their visitors 150 to win in what turned out to be 21 overs; Gloucestershire had reached 109-4 when Time was called. Against Somerset a fortnight later they bowled their visitors out twice, and needed 210 in the fourth innings for victory; things looked good at 132-3, but they then collapsed and were no doubt content when time ran out with their score on 149-8, after 71 overs. They then lost by Warwickshire in 1919