History of Bucks CCC

wickets. Cockett, Barnett and Norman Butler all made runs, and there was a century in his second match for an Aspro team-mate of Barnett, Ron Clements, whose season then ended with a broken finger. Though he returned to play seven more matches the next year, Clements met with little further success. Pickett, back after injury, was able to lead the attack once more, and Rickard offered useful support. Barnett was always one to set and take up a challenge, but for all his aggression on the field he was one of the most popular of all Bucks captains. “The most fun of all the captains I played under,” says Brian Lucas, who first played as a teenager in 1951. “He was very level-headed, he never seemed to get upset and he got the best out of everybody.” Under Barnett’s leadership the county finished second in the Championship for the next two years, though in neither season were the team involved in a challenge match. In 1953 they had already lost to Berkshire, the ultimate champions, and their chance of taking the title disappeared when the final match, against Norfolk at Ascott Park, ended in an eight wicket defeat. In 1954 Bucks only moved into second place after a bizarre ruling that Devon, having gained first innings lead in a drawn Challenge Match, should have their result entered in the table, thereby lowering their average and dropping them to fourth. There were centuries this year for five different players. Mike Tilbury of Gerrards Cross, on his first appearance for the county, made 113 at Lakenham, and his lead was followed by Jack Parton of Aylesbury, who made exactly the same score in the next match against Oxfordshire, again on debut. Neither batsman enjoyed much success thereafter, Tilbury playing 25 matches but never again approaching fifty and Parton scoring just seven more runs in three knocks. Another Aylesbury newcomer, Harry Taylor, enjoyed a golden year as an opener with two hundreds and an average close to fifty. Invariably a slow starter, he had a wide range of shots when under way and is remembered as one of his club’s very finest post-war players. Against Bedfordshire John Cockett hit his only hundred for Bucks, and in the same match Brian Lucas, then from Slough but later of Beaconsfield, also reached three figures for the only time. Lucas played off and on until 1964, his presence in the covers always giving an added edge to the fielding, though a tendency to play across the line restricted his run-making. A hard act to follow Though he had accepted the captaincy for a fourth year, Barnett found that his business commitments enabled him to play in only two of the matches in 1955 – he had missed none in the previous three years – and his vice-captain, Geoff Reynolds from Chesham, stepped in for one season. An increasingly useful batsman and occasional off spinner, he was an immensely popular cricketer, but he was a quiet and gentle man with no pretensions to the dynamism of Barnett. Moreover, he led a weaker team in which Hughes played only five matches and Norman Butler just one and from which, even more crucially, Johns was absent all year. To add to the captain’s woes, Taylor, who had made such a big impact in his first season, struggled all year and soon after left the district to return to his native Durham. With all these difficulties, a drop to twelfth place in the table was no surprise. This glorious warm summer had its compensations, however, as two newcomers established themselves. Peter Stoddart, who had captained Eton in 1952, played in all the matches, making over 500 runs as a very correct opening batsman. Making an equally favourable impression this year was Colin Smith, then playing for Ernest Turner’s but later of Aylesbury, who had played a few games the previous summer. Mixing outswingers and off cutters, he made a formidable opening partner for Pickett and ended as the leading wicket-taker with 44. 65 A hard act to follow