Lives in Cricket No 13 - AP Lucas

the club made one of its frequent appeals for funds and Lucas with five guineas (£300 today) was among the larger individual donors. There is no record that he was as generous again, perhaps because he felt his priority was brother Percy’s family. 1890 In 1890 the counties established a Second-Class Counties Championship consisting of Cheshire, Derbyshire, Essex, Hampshire, Leicestershire, Somerset, Staffordshire and Warwickshire. Matches could only be considered first-class if they were played over three days, and the second-class counties were moving towards that status by regularly playing three-day games against one another and some of the first-class counties, most notably Yorkshire, Lancashire and Surrey. Cricket magazine considered it was in 1890 that Essex ‘commenced to set their house in order with a view to a higher place on county cricket.’ Their list of ten matches was their strongest to date and Lucas was able to play in all but two of them. Contemporary references to the captaincy are few but Lucas apparently shared it with Cyril Buxton, a fine all-round sportsman who was the English rackets champion in 1888. He was the son of Edward North Buxton, chairman of the family brewing firm and an influential figure in west Essex, who had always been generous in his support of the club. Green’s Wisden obituary noted that he ‘was fond of recalling the fact that two Cambridge cricketers who threw in their fortunes with Essex – A.P.Lucas and the late C.D.Buxton – followed him at the University at intervals of ten and twenty years respectively, and, like himself, played four times against Oxford. Lucas was in the Cambridge eleven from 1875 to 1878, and Buxton from 1885 to 1888.’ After defeats by Surrey and Derbyshire and a draw with Warwickshire, Essex welcomed Yorkshire to Leyton for the first time. They dismissed the visitors for 74 and 140 and needed only 23 to win, but heavy rain meant that ‘they were deprived of a match in all points of which they had shewn marked superiority.’ In Lucas’s next game, on an awkward wicket at Derby, a victory target of 53 was far from a formality but he took charge with a fine unbeaten 35, winning the match with a boundary. Lucas returned to Leyton to play for Cambridge University Past and Present against the Australians. He put on 71 for the first wicket with Owen but the feature of the Cambridge innings was a brilliant 145 in 110 minutes by a cousin of the famous children’s novelist Noel Streatfeild, the 20-year-old undergraduate Edward Streatfeild, who then took five for 47. Lucas chipped in with one for 5 as the Australians followed on 171 behind. They were soon 14 for two but a 276-run partnership between Harry Trott and Billy Murdoch enabled them to declare and set Cambridge 185 to win in 85 minutes. Lucas bowled 24 economical five-ball overs for only 27 runs but could not make the breakthrough. In an attempt to force the win, Essex captain, 1889-1894 91