Lives in Cricket No 17 - Fuller Pilch

two in the England first innings when great things had been expected from the Norfolk man. A week later Fuller joined his brothers in Sheffield for Norfolk’s return match with Yorkshire at the Hyde Park ground. Starting on 14 July this would end in controversy after five days in which play was seriously reduced by rain. Yorkshire started well with 191 and then dismissed Norfolk for 75 despite strong resistance from William Pilch who scored 30. A massive 296 from Yorkshire in their second innings left Norfolk needing 413 to win, a seemingly impossible task when Fuller went to the wicket at 1 pm on the fourth day. However, when rain put an end to play on the Friday he was still there with an unbroken 153 after what the Sheffield Independent praised as ‘batting … most beautiful, and proves him the finest player in the country.’ But the Norfolk players could not afford to stay another night in their lodgings and their ‘sponsor’, Squire Rippingall, was not prepared to put his hand in his pocket to help. According to the Independent , the match was ‘given up in favour of Sheffield and the stakes handed over as the three players to go in were some of the worst bats of their party. 7 They had no chance of winning.’ Although Norfolk still needed another 124 to win, the Norfolk Chronicle did not agree and believed that, with three wickets in hand and Fuller still there, Norfolk might have won, ‘had there been means of playing it out.’ Fuller’s 153 not out was his highest score in matches now assessed by the ACS as ‘first-class’; a picture of him from about this time shows him holding a plain, ‘unspliced’ bat. It helped him to a season’s first-class aggregate of 551 runs at 61.22; the season’s second-highest run scorer, Thomas Marsden, totalled just 156. Returning to the south, Fuller renewed his relationship with Town Malling on 25 July and played as a given man at home to Chislehurst and Bromley. Then it was up to Lord’s for the Gentlemen v Players game on 28 and 29 July, won easily as usual by the Players thanks to an innings of 60 from Fuller before being bowled by Mynn. On 12 August he joined the England team at Chislehurst for a match against Kent and when the match finished early he even had time to relax and enjoy an impromptu, three-sided single-wicket challenge of one innings with Marsden, Lillywhite, Mynn, Wenman and Mills. It seems that the attractions of Kent were becoming more and more irresistible. On 18 August Fuller arrived in Brighton to join the England team, less Lillywhite and Box who changed sides to play for their county, in the return match with Sussex that ended after two days with another defeat for the county. Then he returned to Bromley on 22 August to appear for Town Malling, who were, no doubt, delighted to have him back for their game away to Chislehurst and Bromley as his 49 out of 94 in Town Malling’s first innings played a major part in their victory by 82 runs. Fuller’s season Norfolk: the final years 45 7 The three players concerned – Laws, Englebright and Howard – had scored two runs between them in the first innings, with the last of these dismissed hit-wicket. It was not until 1896 that a side scored more than 400 runs in the fourth innings of a first-class match.