Lives in Cricket No 17 - Fuller Pilch

Chapter Eight A year of indecision In 1832 Fuller Pilch abandoned Norfolk and Suffolk and went in search of pastures new. He spent the summer travelling between Cambridge, London and Kent, exploring the options open to him as a professional cricketer for hire. He first linked up with William Caldecourt at Cambridge, where the experienced practice bowler from Lord’s (where he had been employed since 1818) frequently spent the spring as coach to the undergraduates. William Glover, in Memoirs of a Cambridge Chorister , originally published in 1885, remembered watching Fuller at coaching sessions: ‘It was delightful to witness Pilch’s demeanour, even on practice days. I never saw instruction of any kind so conveyed, or so received. His words were few and simple, yet always to the purpose. A gentle hint on this point, a gesture on that, and all given with a patient smile of conscious power certain to be recognised by his admiring auditors.’ Fuller began his season at Lord’s on 25 and 26 June, for England against Sussex. His unbeaten 40 in England’s second innings saw them through to a five-wicket victory. The following week Fuller and Caldecourt played as given men for Cambridgeshire beating MCC at Lord’s by six wickets on 2 and 3 July. Caldecourt bowled down seven wickets in the match and Fuller had six as well as making 50 out of 103 in the Cambridgeshire first innings and an unbeaten 41 in the second. Then Thomas Selby attracted Fuller back into the Town Malling team to play home and away games against the combined villages of Leeds and Bearsted, the first at Leeds Park near Maidstone on 25 and 26 July, where he met Alfred Mynn for the first time. Neither bowled the other out and Fuller top-scored in both innings with 13 and 20 to see Town Malling to victory. At George Field in Town Malling, for the return six days later, they met again and after the visitors had been dismissed for 45 Town Malling rattled up 112 for the loss of one wicket leaving Fuller unbeaten on 72; Leeds and Bearsted were thus persuaded to give up the match at the end of the first day. Fuller stayed in Kent and the next stop was Dartford Brent on 6 August where, this time, Fuller played for Leeds against a much stronger Dartford who had engaged three professionals and won by an innings. One week later Fuller was playing at Chislehurst with Lillywhite for MCC against the Gentlemen of Kent, where the combination of their round-arm and under-arm bowling was not enough to stave off defeat by three wickets. On 20 and 21 August, Fuller and Caldecourt were back at Cambridge again to appear as given men for Cambridgeshire at Chatteris against MCC, ‘in 34