The Summer Field

120 Chapter Fourteen Captaincy and Command ‘Don’t be familiar with those in the ranks, they like you to keep your proper place.’ Thou Shalt Not: 100 Hints to newly commissioned officers (1940), a book among the possessions of Freeman Barnardo Towards the end of his time as a Derbyshire spinner in the 1950s and 1960s, Edwin Smith stood in as captain several times. He never became county captain. In old age he said: ‘If I’d been Edwin Bedford Smith’ – the middle name had been his father’s – ‘I’d’ve been captain.’ Edwin listed aloud the Derbyshire captains (and their pairs of initials) of his time and after – something, you suspect, beyond many 21 st century county cricketers: D.B.Carr, D.C.Morgan, I.R.Buxton, J.B.Bolus, E.J.Barlow. Edwin knew well that it took more than having two initials - one more than the average working man used to have – to become a county captain. As Edwin said, plain Charlie Lee was Derbyshire captain after Donald Carr. You needed runs or wickets, to earn a place among the eleven; and more intangible qualities besides, such as the respect of others. Beyond the field of play, beyond even the pavilion, you had to be the sort of man that a club would want. Here Edwin, the son of a miner, who left home for the county ground by bus, had a point. Never mind the job of being a captain; becoming one could be hard enough. * The rank of captain sounded military for a reason. As in an army, someone had to tell others what to do, even if someone would suffer. In August 1914 at Harpenden, on their way to France, Derbyshire Territorial officers lost to sergeants 37 all out to 55. A Lieutenant Grieves made the top score of 20 for the officers, only to be run out when he tried to steal a run and a Captain Barron at the other end would not. The lieutenant, as the lower- ranking man, had to go. In his book of the 1936/37 tour, Bruce Harris saw another military connection when Hammond (the son of a soldier) was ‘the senior pro’ instead of Herbert Sutcliffe. Harris defined that as ‘an office of indeterminate duties but very determinate value’ and likened it to ‘a very much trusted regimental sergeant major’ under a battalion commander. In an age when so many had served in the Army of 1914/18, readers might not have liked the reminder, but would have understood. Whereas in the war, captains and soldiers of the front line were forever told what to do by higher ranks over the telephone – one reason why the war was at the same time such a shambles, and run all too efficiently – captains on the cricket field, of any nation, had responsibility for tactics.