Lives in Cricket No 13 - AP Lucas

cricketer, but the committee seem not even to have considered him. Perrin was perhaps too taciturn to be a leader, and certainly a notoriously poor fielder who would not have been in a position to chastise the side for their continuing shortcomings in the field. Their first choice was not Johnny Douglas but Charles Kortright. He had resigned the captaincy eight years earlier because he felt he was no longer worth his place in the first team, for which he had not played since 1907, although in 1910 he enjoyed some success as captain of the Second Eleven. At a meeting on 21 February 1911, not attended by Lucas, Green proposed a motion that ‘Mr C.J.Kortright be asked to consider whether he would act as Captain for 1911.’ Kortright was present at the meeting and did not dismiss the proposal out of hand, but eventually declined. At the next meeting, on 28 March, Lucas proposed a motion, seconded by Kortright, that Douglas be asked to act as captain. The minutes record nothing of the debate that led to the decision and the full truth may never be known, but it seems likely that a deal was fixed behind the scenes. Green still ruled the roost and perhaps recognised kindred spirits in both Douglases, while Kortright as captain had shown real confidence in the young man before he had done much to justify it. Lucas could well have put the motion on Green’s behalf, but he was a man of great integrity and is unlikely to have done so unless he agreed with it: he had seconded old Douglas’s election to the committee, and probably was a supporter of the two Douglases. A month later, Lucas became a leading figure in opposing a change to the no-ball law put forward by MCC. 100 In 1910 there had been several instances of batsmen being given run out off a no-ball where, if the delivery had been legitimate, they would have been stumped. MCC proposed to solve the problem by having all no-balls declared dead at the moment of delivery, but Lucas, Green, Douglas and six other leading amateurs wrote to The Times arguing that ‘this old-established and unique feature of cricket should not be abolished’. At a Special General Meeting following the AGM on 3 May, Lucas proposed an amendment that the law should be left as it was, with the addition to Law 16 of the words, ‘He shall not be given “run-out” in any circumstances under which – had the ball not been a no-ball – he would have been given out stumped under Law 23.’ After some discussion, the amendment and the original motion were withdrawn, and it was agreed that MCC would remind umpires that ‘a batsman cannot be stumped from a no-ball’. Lucas and his allies rightly claimed that the new proposals would have made ‘a drastic alteration … in the conduct and playing of the game’, so their victory represents a small but significant milestone in the history of cricket. In April 1912 Lucas accepted nomination to serve for a further three years but after a wretchedly wet season, Green, who had carried the club for thirty years, finally implemented his threat to resign as chairman and from 118 Essex committee man, 1890-1912 100 The Times, 29 April, 4 May, 12 May 1911.