Double Headers

57 “Total (innings closed) 391. G.E.Tyler (sub) did not bat”. The contemporary sources from the Post satisfy me that Tyler was indeed a full substitute, and that he deserves his place in the pantheon of first-class cricketers even though he didn’t bat or bowl. But it is unfortunate – for his sake, as well as for posterity’s – that his captain did not allow him a bat that afternoon at Edgbaston, particularly as the chances of a definite result were now very slim indeed. Some fuller information on his life and cricket career is given here as a footnote. 55 Particularly from the fact that he did not replace the still-injured Howell in the Warwickshire trial match which followed the Worcestershire game on 6-7 August, I infer that Tyler’s drafting into the side on 4 August was opportunistic (he just happened to be there at the time) rather than him being a ‘merit selection’ as twelfth man. But we cannot be sure. 56 Instead, Cliff and Shakespeare went in a second time, facing a deficit of 61 runs. They proceeded untroubled, scoring at more than 4 runs an over despite frequent bowling changes (the 38 overs of Worcestershire’s second innings were shared between seven bowlers). When 6.30pm came – at least thirty minutes before the scheduled close, if not an hour (details of the scheduled hours of play are uncertain), it was agreed that there was no point in continuing, and stumps were drawn with Worcestershire leading by 101 runs, with all ten wickets still intact. Match drawn. Summing up Won 1, drew 1: at least Warwickshire had a considerably better outcome to their 1919 double-header than Surrey had had ten years previously. Their first (and, as it turned out, last) success in the season’s County Championship was no doubt special cause for celebration. But in other respects little was gained, particularly from the ‘experimental’ Worcestershire game. Certainly there were one or two promising performances, particularly Venn’s, which prompted the Birmingham Mail to comment on 7 August that he “seems destined before too long to secure a trial in the first eleven”. 55 George Edward Tyler was not without cricketing pedigree or credentials. He was born at Sparkhill, Birmingham on 3 October 1898, the son of George Harry Tyler (b. Colchester 1870), sometime captain of Moseley CC and occasional Second XI player for Warwickshire. Before the Edgbaston game on 4-5 August 1919, local newspapers record G.E. as scoring 65 for Moseley II v Mitchell & Butler’s on 17 July, 41 for Moseley II v Stourbridge on 26 July, and 34 for G.H.Tyler’s team against F.G.Stephens’ team in an (?intra-club) match at Moseley’s ground at The Reddings on 2 August. There is no record of him bowling in any of the matches for which I have seen scorecards. 56 Early in 2013 CricketArchive amended its scorecard of the Edgbaston game to match that in the Birmingham Post, implicitly acknowledging Tyler’s claims to a first-class career. At the same time his CricketArchive biography was amended to credit him as a first-class cricketer. Warwickshire in 1919 Ten years after: George Tyler stands behind one of his Edgbaston team-mates, Alec Hastilow, in this extract from a photograph of the Moseley CC team of 1929. (Courtesy of Moseley CC)