Famous Cricketers No 60 - Ernest Tyldesley

596. Lancashire v Gloucestershire, Old Trafford, August (2), 3, 4 (Match drawn) (Tyldesley’s second Benefit Match) run out 2 262 234 1 597. Lancashire v Yorkshire, Headingley, August 5, 7, 8 (Match drawn) c G.G.Macaulay b W.E.Bowes 1 431 296 153-3 598. Lancashire v Middlesex, Old Trafford, August 9, 10, 11 (Lancashire won by an innings and 23 runs) b B.G.W.Atkinson 44 414-5d 191 1 200 599. Lancashire v Hampshire, Old Trafford, August 12, 14, 15 (Match drawn) c J.Arnold b O.W.Herman 44 297 271 c and b O.W.Herman 4 27-2 600. Lancashire v Worcestershire, Worcester, August 16, 17, 18 (Match drawn) lbw b G.W.Brook 7 538-9d - - - - 191 1 2 0 6 0 355-4 601. Lancashire v Essex, Liverpool, August 23, 24, 25 (Lancashire won by 17 runs) c K.Farnes b J.O’Connor 39 205 205 b H.T.O.Smith 56 198 181 602. Lancashire v Derbyshire, Blackpool, August 30, 31, September 1 (Match drawn) lbw b T.B.Mitchell 18 109 215 1 c H.Elliott b T.S.Worthington 54 154-5 163-7d 1 SEASON’S AVERAGES Batting and Fielding M I NO Runs HS Avge 100 50 Ct County Championship 26 37 3 1392 159* 40.94 4 5 16 Other Lancashire matches 3 3 0 139 97 46.33 - 1 1 Season 29 40 3 1531 159* 41.37 4 6 17 Career 602 893 96 35699 256* 44.79 93 174 263 Bowling O M R W BB Avge County Championship 5 0 17 0 - - Career 69 9 342 6 3-33 57.00 1934 At the age of 45, Ernest Tyldesley had just one great season left in him. Happily, it coincided with Lancashire’s last outright County Championship win to date; not only did he take part in every one of Lancashire’s 33 games in 1934 but he also scored just short of 2,500 runs - his third highest aggregate - and finished with an average marginally below 58. He came third in the national averages behind the Nawab of Pataudi and Wally Hammond and he was also the country’s third highest run scorer behind “Doc” Gibbons and Frank Woolley. Added to this he completed the fourth highest innings of his entire career and even took 21 catches, just one short of his best seasonal total. Furthermore he scored his hundredth hundred at Peterborough and, though dropping down to fourth in the order from mid-season - surrendering his long held Number 3 spot to Jack Iddon - he still continued to accumulate runs, five innings of over 80 coming after the last of eight hundreds had been scored. For a man of 45 in his twenty-second season of first-class cricket it can only be described as a tour de force. The first of those hundreds came early on at Leicester when he and Eddie Paynter took the score from 83 for 3 to 303 for 4 in 225 minutes, Tyldesley driving especially well. Soon afterwards he dominated the Lancashire batting against Essex; he played extremely well for three hours until eighth out for 89 at 187 and cut loose in the second innings to complete an undefeated 100 out of only 160 for 3. Though Surrey dismissed him for 5 in the next match, it was only a momentary pause; his second innings 81 (contributing to a third wicket stand of 173 with Iddon) proved to be more unfortunate than 61