Lives in Cricket No 18 - FR Foster

now!’ yelled the nonplussed Lilley, who seemed to think Foster was making a mockery of the game. Warwicks gained a lead of 46 and then Foster tried another unorthodox tactic, putting himself in first but this did not work; he was unable to get the medium-fast Harry Dean away and scored only four out of 21 before skying Dean for a catch in the deep. The rest, led by Charlesworth with 110, saw Lancashire requiring 416 for victory. They were in trouble almost from the outset and when John Tyldesley again failed – bowled on the back foot by a trimmer from Field – they must have known it was not their day. Lancashire lost by 137 runs, with the game ending in light-hearted farce when last men Lol Cook and Bill Worsley got themselves in a tangle attempting a quick single. (Surely a snatched run was hardly the most important requirement at this stage.) On his debut as official skipper Foster had orchestrated Warwicks’ best win for years, their first over Lancashire since 1902, something they did not repeat at Old Trafford until 1936, and the manner of its achieving could not be overstated. Just 22, he had galvanized team spirit, shown originality in thought, and the courage to implement his ideas. This success only served to reinforce some of his more unorthodox convictions. Tyldesley’s dismissal by Parsons, for instance, strengthened Foster’s quirky but fervent belief in the properties of the number 13. Back-to-back home wins against Leicestershire and Sussex confirmed the ‘Foster effect’ and his own form seemed to be returning. His 34 against Sussex ended a run of seven single-figure scores for the county, while a first-innings spell of six for 40 laid the foundations for victory. Three wins on the bounce, and no doubt the new skipper was pleased as Punch. So too his Dad, having persuaded him to put cricket before commerce. The championship table now made interesting reading: Kent top, Yorkshire second, Surrey and Notts fourth and fifth. But sandwiched in the middle of this old guard gang of four was Frank Foster’s Warwicks. The transformation had been noted and, in an interview for Fry’s Magazine , he felt they had ‘a good and enterprising side.’ Warwickshire had been under-rated ‘because the papers are so used to running our cricket down, they cannot get out of the groove.’ He later said: ‘I carried with me a little book at each match. The maximum number of marks I gave a man for each match was five. A brilliant catch at a crucial moment may earn five marks, a great bit of stumping might do it, or a brilliant run out, or even twenty runs made quickly. Time is everything when a county eleven is trying to win every match. Warwickshire never played for a draw under my captaincy. Never once did I take notice of a big innings on a good wicket when that innings occupied too long a time.’ Foster’s words regarding his philosophy as captain must have seemed like a shot across the bows to Kinneir, Quaife, Lilley and Baker, who could stonewall with the best of them, but though it was still early days, things looked promising. Matters were about to come down to earth with a bump. Tell Kent from me she hath lost 34