Lives in Cricket No 15 - Michael Falcon

1921 The Minor Counties Championship was fully restored to its normal length for the 1921 season and, although he was unable to maintain the dominance of the previous campaign, Michael Falcon had another successful season, leading Norfolk from the front. With two centuries, he topped the batting averages and, with over 50 wickets, he finished second in the bowling list. He was a little erratic with the bat, his centuries in wins against Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire being balanced with some low scores. With the ball he was competent rather than dangerous until he suddenly found form in the last two games of the season, dismissing twelve Kent II batsmen (albeit on that rarity in an otherwise dry season, a rain-affected wicket) and then nine Cambridgeshire batsmen in the last match. It was in time for the 1921 season that Michael Falcon brought Jack Nichols back to play for the county of his birth. Nichols had played for Norfolk only briefly, in 1898, before his career as a professional cricketer took him away to Worcestershire and Staffordshire. He played five first-class games for the former county and made one appearance for the Minor Counties XI in 1912 but, by the end of the Great War, his time as a county cricketer appeared to be over. However Falcon, on his travels, visited Bishop’s Stortford College, where he came across Nichols coaching the schoolboys. ‘This,’ Falcon declared, ‘is the man we want for Norfolk.’ Falcon duly poached him and Nichols repaid him by playing effectively as batsman, bowler and, when needed, wicket-keeper for the next ten years. After this he took on the role of coach until 1938, helping to bring on numerous players, including Bill Edrich. Michael Falcon played in only two first-class games in 1921: that he finished on the winning side in both is the only similarity between them. In the first he and his fellow Free Foresters were thrashed all around The Parks by Oxford University’s captain, ‘Ronny’ Holdsworth, who made a career-best double century. Falcon took three for 133 in only 26.5 overs as Oxford declared just shy of 400; in mitigation, The Times admitted that he was ‘unlucky’. Although the Free Foresters saved the follow-on, their bowlers were put to the sword again as the students set up a declaration. Falcon leaked runs at more than six an over and his team were eventually set 420 to win in only 4 hours 30 minutes. At this point, Oxford looked odds-on victors and, at the very least, At His Peak: 1919-1929 61