Lives in Cricket No 15 - Michael Falcon

temptation to get him to qualify for Middlesex by residence. He wasn’t interested however, preferring to play for his beloved Norfolk. It’s not that he had any dislike of the toughness with which Test cricket was played: indeed he showed an appreciation of the combative attitudes of the Australians, as would be expected of one who went head-to-head on a regular basis with the likes of Sydney Barnes and Walter Franklin. The Eastern Daily Press referred on several occasions to the ‘edge’ in games Norfolk played with Staffordshire and Buckinghamshire. Though no doubt short of Test matches in import, they were still fiercely fought contests. Some sources go further in pushing Michael Falcon’s claim to international recognition. To quote from the obituary by R.L.Arrowsmith in Wisden , Michael Falcon was ‘ ... a cricketer who might well have played in Test matches had he been qualified for a first-class county. As it was, there were those who thought that he would have strengthened the deplorably weak English bowling in 1921 ...’. In The Cricketer in 1958 Edward Knight stated: ‘In the Test matches of 1921, when some panic selections led to the appearance of 30 players for England against W.W.Armstrong’s wonderful side, Falcon might well have been tried for his country.’ Archie MacLaren, also writing in The Cricketer in 1921, when Falcon was still playing, declared: ‘It strikes me as a pity that such a class bowler as Michael Falcon should have had no opportunity to show that he bowls as well as ever ... . In my opinion he is the best fast bowler we have, and would have been very awkward on some of our fast wickets.’ MacLaren duly plucked Falcon from obscurity and, as described in Chapter Five, selected him to open the bowling against the 1921 Australians, being rewarded with a match-winning performance. Those unfamiliar with MacLaren’s later days might think that the old warrior’s selection of Falcon was another sudden discovery akin to his choice of Sydney Barnes for the Ashes tour of 1901/02. This was not the case: after his virtual retirement from first-class cricket, MacLaren entered the employment of Lionel Robinson, a wealthy Australian who built a splendid ground at Old Buckenham, deep in the Norfolk countryside. The ex-England skipper raised and captained elevens – some of first-class standard – to play friendly cricket to keep Robinson amused, and propped up the bar in his spare time. He had plenty of opportunity to observe Michael Falcon in action for Norfolk, so that it is clear that he was not an instant ‘discovery’, but a cricketer on whom MacLaren had been keeping his eyes for several years. If MacLaren had been a selector, Michael Falcon 116 A Test Cricketer?