Double Headers

79 performers, Mathews had a ‘second tier’ career that lasted 43 years – he played his first Minor Counties match for Wiltshire in 1903 when just past his 19th birthday, and his last match for Sussex Second XI (though not in the Minor Counties Championship) in 1946, at the age of 62. 71 Because the non-first-class status of the match at Hove is not in dispute, I have not sought to follow up the circumstances in which it was arranged, nor whether it was ever contemplated as being a first-class fixture - and if so, how and why that status came to be denied it. But based on the Surrey instance in 1909, it is arguable that there was a case for allowing the match that status even though it was played simultaneously with a Championship match. But evidently that argument was never made. On the other hand, in the same way that the Surrey instance has been quoted in support of allowing first-class status to the Warwickshire v Worcestershire match at Edgbaston in 1919, the fact that the Hove game in 1938 was not allowed first-class status may perhaps be seen as changing the rules of precedent on this subject, by providing a clear steer that simultaneous matches by teams representing the same county can now no longer both be regarded as first-class. Perhaps. The second instance in this final near-miss category dates from 60 years earlier, and several hundred miles further north. 72 Scotland are not regarded by the ACS as playing a first-class match until 1905, though representative Scottish XIs began playing matches at least as early as the 1870s. Between 1874 and 1880, Scotland played only two such 71 In his first-class career, Mathews played 61 innings for an average of only 13.64, with a highest score of 78 and just one other score of 50 or more. But to his credit, it should be recorded that in one of his second eleven matches in 1946 he scored 50* when three months past his 62nd birthday, off a Kent attack that included future Test bowler Fred Ridgway. 72 I am greatly indebted to Neil Leitch, the Honorary Historian of Cricket Scotland, for bringing this instance to my attention, and for providing many of the details on which the following paragraphs are based. Other instances in the British Isles Sussex’s answer to John Shuter. John Mathews played his last game for Sussex Second XI at the age of 62, eight years after representing the county in a near-miss double-header against Cambridge University.