Lives in Cricket No 17 - Fuller Pilch

Frederick Ponsonby had proposed to the MCC committee that a testimonial match for Nicholas Felix should be played in recognition of his services to the game. There was reluctance by some members to sponsor a match for the benefit of an amateur, even one who needed payment to cover his expenses every time he played, but as he was not an actual member of MCC, objections were removed. The committee selected the players who were to appear under the leadership of Felix himself, with Fuller Pilch in charge of the opposition and on the first day of the match at least 5,000 were attracted to St John’s Wood. Bell’s Life reported ‘a vast number of influential gentlemen, patrons of and participators in the “noble” game, from almost every part of the country.’ Just as many gathered on the second day, including Prince Albert who rode to the ground to see his first game of cricket, ‘attended by some of the élite of the land’ and was invited into the pavilion. He was so impressed that he stayed for nearly two hours. At the end of the first day, Fuller’s side had a lead of 55 with eight of their second innings wickets in hand. When the next wicket fell on the second morning the lead was 73 as Fuller walked out to the middle. The final seven wickets went down for 87 runs while Fuller batted on to reach an unbeaten 31, including ten of the eleven runs scored for the tenth wicket. Despite the efforts of Parr, whose 59 was the highest individual innings of the match, Fuller’s side won by 34 runs on the third day. Bell’s Life thought it ‘one of the finest matches ever witnessed.’ A week after all that excitement, Lillywhite, Hillyer, Dean, Dorrinton, Redgate and Fuller played in the return match between Gravesend and the Islington Albion Copenhagen Club on the ground next to the Copenhagen House Inn on 11 and 12 June. Fuller’s top score in the Gravesend first innings, an unbeaten 34 out of 110, was never enough to save them from defeat by seven wickets. Six days later, on 18 June, a crowded Lord’s was the scene of another epic encounter. The wealthy Banks brothers from Kent, William and Edward, were the backers of Arthur Mynn who had been challenged by Nicholas Felix for the ‘Championship of England’, with Edward Banks appearing as one of Mynn’s two fielders. Felix failed to score from 15 balls in his first innings and after Mynn had hit five runs, Felix made every effort to overtake him by hitting 175 of the 247 balls he received, but the speed of Banks and his partner in the field kept his score down to a mere four runs and Mynn won by an innings. Fuller was not officially involved this time, nor in the return at Bromley in September, although he may have been present as he was not playing on either date. Then it was time for the two contestants to accompany Fuller to Kent’s first game of the season, against Surrey on 25 and 26 June at the Kennington Oval ground which had opened the year before. The two sides had not met since 1828 and the Surrey management were keen to establish a team that could compete with the other ‘crack’ counties. Taking advantage of strict qualification by birth, they were able to take Felix and Martingell out of the Kent squad and into their own on this occasion and beat their weakened opponents by ten wickets. A week later Kent came back strongly against Sussex at Brighton, beating them by 144 runs. On 6, 7 and 8 June William 92 William Clarke creates the All-England Eleven