History of Bucks CCC

played alongside his father, who was shortly to become Archdeacon and then Bishop of Buckingham. BHG Shaw, also a Marlburian, followed into the team in 1911. Both brothers were wicket-keepers who also batted, Edward gaining a blue at Oxford, but their chances to perform behind the stumps were thwarted by the arrival in 1911 of Walter Franklin, soon to become one of the giants of Buckinghamshire cricket. It was a cricketing curiosity that the Bucks team, for three matches in 1912, should have contained both wicket-keepers from that year’s Varsity match, Franklin having won his blue at Cambridge. Another to play for Buckinghamshire for the first time in 1912 was WE Hazelton, a Wellingborough schoolboy, who came with a reputation as the outstanding bowler in public schools cricket that year. He achieved little in his solitary match in 1912, but 26 wickets from only four matches the next year provided evidence of a talent that would serve Bucks long and well. Another whose main contributions would come after the war was PW Le Gros, who had been in the eleven at Rugby School in 1910 and who first played for Bucks in the opening fixture of the following year, not missing a match until the end of the 1925 season. Mention should also be made of NDC Ross, a product of Uppingham and Cambridge University, who first appeared in 1910 and went on to average over 40 in 1911 when the highlight of his season was an innings of 144 scored in just over two hours against Carmarthenshire at Slough. That day he shared a partnership of 147 with WL Jackson of Amersham Hill, who was making his Bucks debut and was soon to become a pillar of the county’s batting. EHD Sewell’s first year as captain of Bucks in 1913 was much less successful with five defeats and only two victories. Sewell himself again had a fair season with the bat, but his 35 wickets were more expensive, and Mat Wright, no longer styled as a professional, managed only a dozen wickets in what was to be his last season. In a less settled side there were plenty of opportunities for those who were clearly unable to cope with the demands of minor counties cricket and the Annual Report made specific reference to the feebleness of the slip catching. It was the one drawn match that was in many ways the most satisfactory for Bucks. This was at High Wycombe, where the county faced a daunting task after Hertfordshire had amassed 505, by a strange coincidence the same score as Bucks had made at Bedford the previous year and now the highest ever to be recorded against the county. Initially the reply was feeble as the Bucks score stood at 95 for 8, but Walter Franklin then joined forces withWright, hitting 119 not out in a partnership of 141 that still stands as a county record for the ninth wicket. The follow-on was not saved, but in the second innings Sewell promoted himself to open with TR Kent from Slough. They added 217, with both batsmen scoring centuries, as they set a first-wicket record that has yet to be beaten. Tommy Kent’s 123 was the first flowering of a talent that had lain dormant in earlier seasons and now took him to the top of the averages, while Sewell went on to hit his second century for the county the following day in the match against Bedfordshire at Aylesbury. The 1914 season was cut short after only two of the scheduled matches had been played, and by the second week of August most of the minor counties were abandoning their playing commitments in preparation for a much bigger battle in Europe. Bucks’ second game, which ended on 30 July, brought victory by an innings and eight runs against Dorset at Aylesbury. David Sewell, EHD’s son, who had been in the Sandhurst eleven that summer, broke the visitors’ batting with six for 44, while the batting hero was Edward Shaw with a commanding 117. Young Sewell would return to play again in 1920; Shaw would be less fortunate. The two matches that Bucks had been able to play in July were notable in shaping the course of the county’s history - they marked the first appearance of Frank Edwards. He 38 EHD Sewell brings hope