Lives in Cricket No 15 - Michael Falcon

spectators alike was that no fewer than seven members of the Minor Counties eleven were Norfolk players, appearing in front of their home crowd. This favouring of one county was something of a rarity as teams for Minor Counties representative games were generally selected from all across the country. The Norfolk players were Falcon himself, Geoffrey Colman, Geoffrey Stevens, Walter Beadsmoore, John Coldham, Guy Pedder and Harold Watson. The four ‘given men’ (as they would have been described in olden days) were genuine stars at the Minor Counties level. They were Charles Titchmarsh, the master batsman from Hertfordshire; Percy Chapman, a team-mate of Falcon at Eastbourne in 1921, who was still with Berkshire but would soon be captain of the England Test team; Alexander Doggart, a solid batsman who represented Durham; and Hertfordshire’s Jack Meyer, an off-break bowler and competent bat, who was still up at Cambridge but who had a long first-class career in India and Somerset ahead of him. Michael Falcon won the toss and decided to bat, but the Minor Counties didn’t fare too well and it took a defiant 40 from the aggressive Coldham, undoubtedly the highpoint of his career, to guide his team to a total of 196. The South Africans collapsed in turn before the spin of Meyer, who bowled unchanged to take six for 60 whilst Falcon, ‘bowling at a great pace,’ supported him with three for 48, leaving the Minor Counties with a first innings lead of 47. On the second day the ‘guest’ batsmen pulled their weight: At His Peak: 1919-1929 72 Michael Falcon leads out the Minor Counties side against the South Africans at Lakenham, 1924.