Cricket Witness No 6 - His Captain's Hand on His Shoulder Smote

83 out that the two most prestigious fixtures for Greyfriars in Kent were against St James’ Collegiate School (St Jim’s) in Sussex and Rookwood in Hampshire. Next he points out one or two Hamiltonian blunders, such as all three stumps being knocked over, an appeal required and the umpire saying ‘out’ rather than raising his finger. Burrell muses over whether any pupils are named, Wodehouse or Conan Doyle style, after well-known cricketers but concedes that Bob Cherry, 123 in less than an hour in a form match, and BS Rayleigh, an unbeaten 166, were not so blessed. Bob Cherry appears to have been the pick of the batsmen in the Famous Five, with Harry Wharton another splendid bat. Hurree Singh is a useful brisk bowler and Johnny Bull a resolute stonewaller. After all, he does hail from Yorkshire. Frank Nugent, the Frank Richards lookalike, only plays as a last resort when there are exigencies of plot. The Remove invariably defeat their older foes in the Upper Fourth, sometimes with the help of the rakish Herbert Vernon-Smith, ‘the Bounder’, a dapper character based, it is suggested, on Sir Aubrey Smith, late of Charterhouse. Mr Queltch is rarely seen on the cricketing front but the cricket master Mr Lascelles does appear, especially umpiring – and the matches are often, and very properly, two innings affairs. Examples of the place of cricket in these sometimes convoluted plot-lines are when, on two separate occasions, a pupil, first Da Costa and then Ralph Stacey, is blackmailed to sell the game by gambling sixth formers and then, given a sudden change of circumstance, wins the game with an outstanding bowling performance. Petty and even grand crime is never too far removed; Dick Lancaster, pride of the first eleven, is a Raffles-like figure who doubles as a safe-breaker. Philip Blagdon is expelled from Greyfriars but returns as the school’s cricket professional, a cover for his search for buried treasure. Burrell also mentions ‘The Greyfriars Prospectus’, published as late as 1965. It includes cricket records but they seem to have no provenance in the original stories. A score of 720 by the Remove versus Courtfield Juniors in 1850 is unlikely, even in conditions The Flood (1) Greyfriars For Ever..And Ever