Lives in Cricket No 13 - AP Lucas

of illness. He was, nevertheless, second behind A.G.Steel in the Cambridge batting and bowling averages. His only significant contribution with the bat was 49 against MCC, but against the Gentlemen of England he had a fine match with the ball, taking five for 34 in the first innings and two for 9 in the second. In the next Cambridge match, a twelve-a-side game at The Oval, he took six wickets in the match, in the second innings bowling unchanged with Steel to dismiss Surrey for 43. In the Varsity match he finally did himself justice with the bat when, in the second innings, his 74 was the highest score of the game and his 117 for the first wicket with Alfred Lyttelton by far the highest partnership. He also took two wickets and a catch in Oxford’s first innings, and Cambridge won by 238 runs. In May 1878, Arthur Ward had written to the MCC secretary, Henry Perkins, warning of ‘the possible break up of [the Cambridge University Cricket] Club which has for so long kept up high class cricket in this land.’ A ‘fall of members from 80 to 46 was due entirely to an increase in number of private college grounds’, and had led to a reduction in income of £97. Ward proposed that a poll tax on members of college clubs should be doubled from 1s 6d to 3s, but also sought assistance from MCC. Perkins asked for further information from Ward, who replied testily that ‘the two Lytteltons and Lucas’ did not know the details, but the club ‘could not continue its hand to mouth existence.’ It is probably no coincidence that Perkins finally agreed to cough up £100 on 15 July, when Cambridge’s games at Lord’s against MCC and Oxford had brought in considerable gate money, and a hastily arranged match against the Australians promised a further bonanza. Although Ward conducted these negotiations, the Lytteltons and Lucas, as principal officers, clearly played an important supporting role. It was an early form of MCC sponsorship of university cricket, which continues today through the University Centres of Cricketing Excellence. Cambridge in Lucas’s time played seven first-class games a season, and in his four years at the university he had played in every one of the 28 games possible. He must therefore have been greatly disappointed when a recurrence of his illness forced him to miss the Australian game, although he was not greatly missed. His team-mates won by an innings and 72 runs in two days but the tourists, who had earlier in the season beaten MCC in a single day, were down to eleven fit men and doubtless exhausted by a ridiculously demanding itinerary. Cambridge in 1882 and Oxford in 1884 both beat the Australians, but by lesser margins, and no university defeated them after that. Immediately after the Varsity match, Lucas played for the Gentlemen in two wins against the Players, by 55 runs at The Oval and by 206 at Lord’s. His 91 in the second innings at Lord’s was the highest individual score in the two games. He recovered from his illness just before the end of the season and captained Surrey – possibly for the first time, although in early games the identity of the captain is not always known. He was able to enforce the follow on but Gloucestershire batted out time comfortably. Surrey and Cambridge University, 1874-1878 44