Chapter Fifteen Lord’s and the Seaside Around 14,000 people made the journey to Lord’s on Whit Monday with more than the usual degree of anticipation in 1920. Middlesex had started their Championship programme with a resounding victory over Warwickshire. Sussex had done even better, winning their opening three games to arrive at headquarters brimming with confidence. Although this was to prove something of a false dawn they were a strong and attractive side and to add piquancy to the fixture Monday was the second day. Rowland Ryder, the secretary of Warwickshire, had proposed that the starting days for all county matches should be changed from Mondays and Thursdays to Saturdays andWednesdays. The benefits were becoming apparent. Many people, otherwise deprived by the Monday beginnings, were now able to see all or part of the first two days of the Bank Holiday fixtures. Thus on Whit Saturday, Sussex were bowled out for 232 by four o’clock, chiefly through the seemingly innocuous slow medium off breaks of Harry Lee, who took five for 21 in 11 overs. Lee then ventured out with his captain Pelham Warner to begin the Middlesex innings. In 1920 PlumWarner was in his 47th year. Middlesex had had a poor time of it in 1919 and he had considered stepping down but was persuaded to give it another summer, although he announced that this would be the last one. The team had developed into a powerful batting side, with Warner, Lee, Hearne and Hendren and the amateurs Nigel Haig and Frank Mann capable of making big scores. Hearne, now relying mainly on off breaks and an occasional cutter after a finger injury in 1919, and the new, giant fast bowler Jack Durston were the mainstays of the attack but Lee, Greville Stevens and the fast medium Haig added support. There was usually a sprinkling of amateurs to add colour in more ways than one, as Ronald Mason wrote: “…the slight, spare figure of Warner leading the half-dozen amateurs down the pavilion steps, Harlequin, Free Forester, I Zingari caps abounding, the little animated knot of professionals fanning out obediently from the gate of the rabbit hutch.” By the close of Saturday’s play Warner and Lee were still together with the score on 156 and Sussex found no respite on the second day. Lee made a century before departing at 241, Warner going on to 139 before edging Arthur Gilligan to the wicket-keeper 43 runs later. Haig, in his first innings of the season, struck 20 fours in a dazzling 131 in 110 minutes, overshadowing Hearne, who was still there on 116 as the fourth century maker of the innings when Warner declared at 543 for four. A demoralised Sussex were then bowled out by Lee, six for 47 and 11 for 68 in the match, Middlesex winning by an innings and 130 runs at 6.45pm on Whit Monday. Such fixtures between Middlesex and Sussex saw a lasting relationship developing out of an earlier flirtation. Hendren’s first big match hundred had been made on a similar occasion at Lord’s in 1911 when Middlesex won a game 63