Lives in Cricket No 13 - AP Lucas

Lucas had been out of form and was unfortunate to miss two matches where Essex ran up big scores on excellent pitches and won easily. He may well have missed more but Turner, who had been in fine form, was called away on Army duty to the South African war. Lucas came back to his best with 67 in a rain-affected draw at Derby, but an unbeaten 55 against Lancashire and 39 against Gloucestershire were in vain as Essex lost both games heavily. In the final game he captained the side in Owen’s absence and his declaration set Warwickshire 177 in four hours to avoid an innings defeat, but rain again washed out Essex’s chance of victory. Though seldom at his best, he still scored 393 runs at just over 30. 1900 Green, in his speech after the Australian win, expressed the hope that ‘this victory was only the forerunner of good things to come’, but it was not to be. Essex’s decline late in the 1899 season foreshadowed the end of an era. Only Mead continued to be a force as a bowler and the Leyton wicket became one of the blandest in the country, so Essex were seldom able to bowl sides out. Military duties meant that Turner, who played 33 games for Essex from June 1897 to July 1899, only ever played another 35. The increasingly injury-prone Owen was in decline and there seems to have been an informal arrangement whereby Lucas led the side in his absence, so his services were needed more than ever. In 1900 Lucas must have negotiated more out-of-office time with Booth Brothers, for amazingly, at the age of 43, he played 15 first-class games – more than ever before. He began the season with his first non-Essex first-class match for a decade, for MCC against Leicestershire at Lord’s. The feature of the match was a brilliant partnership between Lucas and Kingsmill Key, who came together at 47 for four and added 199 for the fifth wicket in under two hours. Lucas’s 95 included four fives and two fours, and MCC won by nine wickets. This was a match played under an experimental ‘boundary-net’ system, in which hits over the net counted three and if the ball touched the net two were added to whatever had been run. C.F.C.Clarke, a supporter of the net system, recalled: ‘It was argued that if two veterans like K.J.Key and A.P.Lucas could make their hundreds without much exertion, the scheme must be a failure.’ 91 Clarke said the fault was the addition of two runs when the ball touched the net and in fact the experiment was modified, but the new version proved equally impracticable and the whole thing was abandoned. For Essex Lucas was a straight replacement for the absent Turner, even taking his place at No.5. Though he was half Lucas’s age, Turner could scarcely have done better. Against Sussex his 78 was ‘dashing’ and, as so often, he shared his experience batting with a young professional – in this Essex cricketer, 1895-1907 105 91 Bettesworth, op cit ., p 300. Charles Frederick Carlos Clarke (1853-1931) was a contemporary of Lucas at Surrey but preferred country house and club cricket, and was a keen amateur huntsman, actor and musician.