Lives in Cricket No 17 - Fuller Pilch

again making top score of 32 out of 104 before being bowled by Grundy. The same bowler dismissed him again after he had made just two in the second innings. In the Cricket Week at Canterbury the Kent team had to be strengthened with four given men, Bickley, Clarke, Parr and Wisden, if they were to give the England eleven any sort of a game on 14, 15 and 16 August. 17 Although completed in two days, it was a high-scoring match – 435 four-ball overs, the equivalent of 290 six-ball overs, were sent down – won by England and Fuller’s contribution was disappointing. Going in further down the order he was run out for ten in the first innings, those long legs of his finally unable to carry him quickly enough between the wickets. He was stumped off Grundy without scoring in the second innings, those same legs taking him out of his crease and then moving too slowly to bring them back to safety. This was his last match now recognised as first-class. Fuller was persuaded by his old friend Alfred Mynn to join him at Hollingbourne to play against West Wickham on 28 and 29 August, where bad weather prevented him from having a second innings and a chance to improve on his four runs in the first. He played his very last match for Kent at Tunbridge Wells on 14, 15 and 16 September against Eighteen of Tunbridge Wells and District where proof of Kent’s decline as a team to be feared was clearly demonstrated when they lost by an innings and 35 runs. Fuller made six in the first innings and was bowled by Luck for a duck in the second. There were just a couple of club appearances in 1855 while Fuller considered his future and then he finally called time on his illustrious career. Both games were in late August for the Beverley Club against old rivals Penshurst. In the first Fuller top-scored with 17 out of 56 in the first innings, but it was only a matter of time before Penshurst ran out winners by eight wickets. In the return at Canterbury, on 30 and 31 August, he managed only six runs in the first innings and in a determined attempt to turn the clock back, he decided to have a bowl when it was Penshurst’s turn to bat. He took three wickets and helped restrict the lead to only eight runs. It appears that this extra physical effort was the final nail in the coffin of his cricket career, as the scorecard shows that he was ‘absent’ from Beverley’s second innings. He never played again. His business with Edward Martin came to an end at about this time, with the publication of a notice in the London Gazette above the names of Fuller Pilch and Edward Martin reading: ‘Notice is hereby given that the partnership heretofore existing between us the undersigned, Fuller Pilch and Edward Martin, in the business of Cricket Bat Makers at Oxford, under Fuller’s final seasons 115 17 Kent thus fielded three players over 50: Clarke was 55, Wenman and Pilch were 50. Perhaps it was this match he was referring to when he suggested to Fred Gale many years later that perhaps he and his colleagues played on too long. There have been only five instances of first-class sides having three players over 50. Three were before 1854. The only instance since was the MCC side which played Cambridge University at Fenner’s in 1953, with G.O.B.Allen, J.M.Sims and R.E.S Wyatt on board. MCC won.