Lives in Cricket No 17 - Fuller Pilch

Admission to a tent cost one shilling and sixpence and entrance to the ground only sixpence. The match started in dramatic fashion. The England team lost their first three wickets in nine balls without scoring a run and then a couple more, including Yorkshire’s rising star Tom Marsden, who had scored 227 against Nottingham the year before, for nought with only two runs recorded. The Sheffield Mercury reported: ‘Such an opening of the game was truly alarming and it was thought that the Fates had conspired against All England. At length the game took a more favourable turn, under the batting of Pilch and Dawson, who sustained the falling cause most manfully.’ It seemed that the round-arm bowling of Lillywhite and Broadbridge had been too much for the England batsmen until Fuller arrived at the wicket. He made top score of 38 out of 81, with the Mercury reporting: ‘Pilch is a powerful young fellow; possessed of muscle and great activity, he has the bat at his complete command. No one could see him without admiring his easy and superior playing. He got his runs principally by four at a stroke.’ Fuller was eventually bowled by Lillywhite in the first innings. Their rivalry would grip the attention of thousands of spectators in all of the games in which they were on opposite sides during their careers. But they were both professionals and there was no animosity between them. In fact, they played together in the same teams on no fewer than 57 occasions. Sussex won the first of the ‘trials’ by seven wickets and travelled back south to renew the contest at Lord’s twelve days later on 18 and 19 June. Only five of the original All England eleven came down, including William Mathews and Fuller Pilch, who was going to make his second appearance at Lord’s seven years after the first. They were joined by three professionals and three MCC members, one of whom was George Knight, the club member who was the driving force behind the idea for the whole series, and was himself a bowler of round-arm, even though in this game and the next he would be in the side confined to bowling under-arm. Sussex also won the second match, by three wickets, and there were no heroics from Fuller this time. But he was involved in the controversy that threatened to prevent the third and final game taking place. After the match, a statement was issued signed by the eight professionals who had played for All England, plus William Caldecourt the Lord’s practice bowler: ‘We, the undersigned, do agree that we will not play the third match between All England and Sussex, which is intended to be played at Brighton in July or August, unless the Sussex bowlers bowl fair – that is, abstain from throwing.’ The signatories were Thomas Marsden, William Ashby, William Mathews, William Searle, James Saunders, T.C.Howard, W.H. Caldecourt, Fuller Pilch and Thomas Beagley. This was totally unexpected, bearing in mind that the three games had been set up by MCC for the purpose of testing round-arm bowling at the game’s highest level, and it seemed a little odd that they were now Round-Arm bowling proves its case 22