History of Bucks CCC

medium pacers claiming 33 wickets. With Fred Harris able to play in only three games, John Mills, also from Chesham, partnered Cannings for most of the season. Dubbed ‘Taurus’ by his opening partner, Mills was a swarthy character with prominent sideburns, who hurled the ball down at ferocious pace. “Just like the village blacksmith” in one player’s memory. Eight wickets for 22 against Hertfordshire was the harbinger of what lay in store for Mills, who enjoyed conspicuous success the following year, when Cannings did not return. With the team chopping and changing throughout 1960, the batting was often weak and no centuries were hit; yet five victories were secured, several by narrow margins, to take the team to third place in the table. The win against Norfolk at Lakenham in the first match, by 34 runs, was set up by Atkins’ brilliant fielding. Within a period of twelve minutes the home team’s second innings was in disarray as first Bill Edrich and then Ted Witherden fatally misjudged Atkins’ capability in the covers. The next match, against Suffolk at Ipswich School, saw Bucks complete a memorable East Anglian double when a ninth wicket partnership of 46 between Harris and Smith ended with a six over long on from the Aylesbury bowler’s bat with just two minutes remaining. There was the satisfaction of twice defeating Hertfordshire, Stoddart’s least favoured opponents. “Robin Marques could be a bit too competitive,” he has said. The defeat of Oxfordshire at Slough completed the best summer of Stoddart’s tenure, and it was followed by another good year in 1961 when the side finished fourth, again with five wins. Atkins had a particularly good time with the bat, David Janes, a 17-year-old left-hander from Beaconsfield, who had played for the Public Schools earlier in the year, first established himself, and ‘Taurus’ had by far his best season with 46 wickets. The weather was against Bucks in 1962, but it was an indication of Stoddart’s positive intent – and the way matches were played in those days - that in eight of the ten matches he declared the Bucks innings, though his enterprise brought him only two victories. Vic Cannings returned for just two matches, taking 19 wickets at 6.21, while the main strike bowler was the somewhat ungainly Rex Avery from High Wycombe, whose career of 27 matches stretched over 14 seasons and who took 34 of his 70 wickets during this one year. Bucks’ regular wicket-keeper was now Derek Taylor, soon to progress, via Surrey, to a long and distinguished career with Somerset. He and his twin brother Michael had both started their cricket at Amersham Hill before moving to Chesham and they had made their Bucks debut together the previous year. At this stage, Mike Taylor was regarded purely as a batsman – he never bowled an over for Bucks – but once he had been engaged by Nottinghamshire his usefulness as a net bowler was translated to the middle and for 16 years, first at Trent Bridge and then with Hampshire, he was a highly successful medium pacer. Around this time plans were being laid for the first one-day knockout competition. ‘There is a possibility that some minor counties will be invited to take part,’ the Bucks yearbook for 1962 informed members. The possibility came to fruition in1964, but finishing sixteenth in the Championship the previous summer meant that Bucks could not seize their chance. There would not be long to wait. In 1964 Colin Lever struck a rich vein of form to become the only Bucks batsman to exceed a thousand runs in a season. He started with a bang, adding an unbeaten 263 with David Janes against Hertfordshire at Tring, still a county record for the second wicket. Lever’s 1,011 runs included three centuries, winning him the Wilfred Rhodes Trophy as the leading minor counties batsman of the year and helping Bucks to seventh place in the table - good enough to qualify for what had now become the Gillette Cup. A schoolteacher, Colin Lever was a member of the strong Chesham club. One of Bucks’ most talented players, he was the older brother of England fast bowler Peter Lever. A regular player for Bucks in the mid-1960s, his appearances became fewer after he had taken up a teaching post in Liverpool in 1968. After his move north, he found that the sound method and steely application that had brought him such 68 The Stoddart years