Famous Cricketers No 82 - H.E. 'Tom' Dollery

down the pitch at one point and asked him what the score was, as he couldn’t make it out on the small scoreboard. Ironically, Hitchcock couldn’t make it out either, and it was then that he first realised that his own eyes were not all that they should be (Hitchcock had to play in glasses eventually). Warwickshire were starting to re-build the old Championship-winning team and although they had a great run in mid-season, winning six out of eight games with two drawn, they had to be content with equal 9th place at the end of the season. He showed the Edgbaston faithful what they would be missing with a century in his very first innings of the season against Somerset, but rain on the last day prevented it from being a match winning one. He then demonstrated his skill on a bad pitch against Lancashire at Old Trafford, when he and Fred Gardner scored 96 of Warwickshire’s second innings all out total of 116, the next best score being nine! MCC selected him to turn out for them against Gloucestershire at Lord’s as a farewell gesture, a sign of the respect he was held in at HQ, (although he would not have accepted the invitation if his county had had a Championship fixture on the date). The respect didn’t go so far as to ask him to skipper the side however, the tradition of having an amateur to lead MCC out at Lord’s would really die hard, and Ronnie Bird who last captained Worcestershire in 1953 was brought out of retirement to lead them. Professionals as captains was obviously still a “no go” concept with the Establishment at the MCC, despite a certain Len Hutton, (with MCC abroad and England at home), and Dollery himself having already proved otherwise. If he felt any resentment it didn’t show in his batting, as he played a match winning innings of 92 with 3 sixes and 8 fours in just over two hours against a full strength Gloucestershire attack, adding 106 in seventy minutes for the fifth wicket with a young Ray Illingworth. The Leicestershire bowlers would certainly have been glad to see the back of him as he hit his sixth century off them in seven seasons. He notched up 2 sixes and 11 fours as he added 220 for the fourth wicket with Hitchcock who scored his maiden first-class century. Warwickshire won easily, as no other batsman could get past fifty in the match. This innings sparked off one of the best scoring sequences of his career as he hit up 721 runs at an average of 90 in five matches, four of which Warwickshire won; they were going to miss him! Following the century against Leicestershire he top scored with a more sedate 85 against Gloucestershire, but for once one of his declarations went wrong as he set his opponents 206 to win in two hours, and thanks to a brilliant hundred in just over an hour and a half by George Emmett they got them. He followed this with a superb 156 in the first innings against Essex at Westcliff, rescuing his side from trouble at 70-5. Wisden said, “For just over four hours he was complete master of the bowling and, in scoring 156 out of 237, hit one six and twenty-one fours, chiefly drives and strokes to leg”. In the second innings he hit up a rapid 65 in a century partnership with Gardner before declaring, and Eric Hollies did the rest with one of his best spells of leg-spin to take 8-42 as Essex were well beaten. Innings of 53 and 40 came next on a turning pitch at Dudley, one of his best matches against “the old enemy”, Worcestershire, as his team won easily again. He wound up the run of form with 65 and 151 in another easy win against Nottinghamshire back at Edgbaston. The 151 was his 50th and final first-class century containing twenty fours during which he shared a sixth wicket partnership of 183 with Alan Townsend made in only two hours. His form rather deserted him after this flourish, but he still came up with the odd brilliant innings. One such was against Sussex at Hastings on a green pitch; set 203 to win in the last innings he came in when the first three wickets had gone down for only six runs. He then hit up 82 with 10 fours in two and a half hours in a stand of 111 with the obdurate Gardner, but he was brilliantly stumped off the medium pace of Ted James by Rupert Webb just before close of play on the second day, and his side fell 56 runs short. He said goodbye to Derby, where he averaged nearly 63 over his career, with 73 in a stand of 131 for the fifth wicket with Hitchcock, and his 61 was the only decent score in an all-out 138, in a poor batting display at Trent Bridge in a defeat by Nottinghamshire. His last representative appearance was appropriately for the Players at Lord’s in July. No doubt his selection was on sentimental grounds, as he wasn’t even made captain, that honour deservedly going 55