Lives in Cricket No 15 - Michael Falcon

with those of the gentlemen who captained England between C.B.Fry in 1912 and Arthur Carr in 1926 reveals that Michael Falcon would not have been out of his depth as a contributor with bat or ball if he had skippered in that era: Batting Avge Bowling Avge J.W.H.T.Douglas 27.90 23.32 Hon L.H.Tennyson 23.33 54.10 F.T.Mann 23.42 83.00 A.E.R.Gilligan 20.08 23.20 M.Falcon 25.24 24.79 Douglas has marginally the best figures but, as has already been argued, he was a busted flush by June 1921. None of the others were any more successful than Michael Falcon at the first-class game. Lest it be thought that Falcon’s figures were artificially improved by his many appearances for the Free Foresters against Cambridge and Oxford Universities, the statistics clearly refute this: he suffered some of his severest beatings as a bowler when turning out against the Universities. On the contrary, it was the others who had their statistics artificially massaged in two separate ways. Firstly, they all had the advantage of being captains of first-class counties. In those days many umpires, who were of very low status, were well known to give the benefit of any doubt in a decision involving a captain in his favour in the hope that he would look kindly upon them when marking them in his match report. For example, Cyril Washbrook has been reported as saying that the captaincy of Lancashire was worth 400 runs a season. 66 A little massaging would have done Michael Falcon’s statistics no harm: and by the way, no evidence exists that the same sort of thing went on in the Minor Counties Championship. Secondly, the others had the chance to improve their figures by playing against lowly counties such as Derbyshire, Worcestershire, Northampton- shire, Leicestershire and Glamorgan whose resistance in those days varied between the spirited-but-outgunned to the token. By comparison, if Falcon’s weakest opponents in the first-class game were the Universities, his figures were bound to suffer in comparison. 122 A Test Cricketer? 66 Notable exceptions amongst the umpires were Frank Chester and Cec Pepper, who were known to be fearless and impartial. As far as I know, there has been no statistical investigation of the phenomenon of the ‘cowardly umpire’, but it remains part of the folklore of the first-class game.