Lives in Cricket No 18 - FR Foster

five for 69 was seen as almost a triumph. Cricket reckoned Foster’s bowling showed more nip than for sometime past. Unfortunately Warwicks now collapsed to Booth’s pace. In their second innings Yorkshire again struggled on a difficult wicket, saved from disaster by Roy Kilner’s brilliant 74 in 50 minutes, but Warwicks had little hope of making the required 298 and fell 90 short. Foster was Rhodes’ only victim of the match, for 23. Three bad defeats on the trot, Warwicks were surely glad to return to their own midden, where they took on Lancashire, another underachieving side, and in a match of changing fortunes they were thankful to win by two wickets. Foster took seven wickets and played a responsible 60 to steady the ship in the second innings but was twice out to careless shots and put down a ‘sitter’. Gloucestershire now came to Nuneaton. Dipper and Barnett added 113 for the visitors on the first morning but the emerging pace duo of Foster (four for 78) and Jeeves (six for 94) then got to work and later Parsons’ maiden century saw Warwicks to a lead of 98. Despite another good innings from Dipper, more fine bowling by Foster, whose four for 50 took his figures to 34 wickets for 666 in five matches and who seemed fully recovered from his domestic collision with a wardrobe, helped his side to an easy win. Any possible new-found optimism was about to be destroyed with the Kent return, just weeks after the Tonbridge debacle. A blank first day mattered little as, for the second successive innings against Warwicks, the sinistral duo of Blythe and Woolley shared ten wickets and Warwicks were dismissed for a slow and unconvincing 159. Kent gained a lead by the close and next day were able to declare 212 on and see their bowlers skittle Warwicks, whose batting Wisden summed up as ‘feeble’. Warwicks lost by an innings and 51. The skipper’s contribution, 0 and 7 and two for 78, was pretty negligible. Foster, Quaife and Smith now went to Lord’s for Gentlemen v Players. Batting at eight, Foster was run out for 14 and caused amusement in some quarters in the second innings when he fell for 33, stumped by ‘his’ Tiger off Barnes. The bare statement tells little however. Single-handed he defied Tarrant and Barnes, who took seven wickets, on what Wisden described as a ‘ruined’ wicket and his 33 was by a deal the highest Gentleman score. He went in at 37 for five and was out at 86 for seven. Foster described his dismissal thus: ‘Tiger Smith wangled me out and I laughed like a silly fool. Barnes bowled a ball a little shorter than usual. I pretended to run down the wicket to him, missed it, slipped my right foot back and heard a growl from “my” Tiger of “How’s that?” I stood there nonchalantly, told Tiger to shut up, and prepared to take the next ball.’ … “‘oppit, skipper. Don’t stand there pulling our legs.”’ The Gentlemen finally succumbed for 102; Foster, it was reported, had never batted better. Not only his single-handed fight was inspirational. R.B.Lagden, a Cambridge Blue but out of his depth here, had amassed one run in his three innings for the Gentlemen this season. On a pair here, he struggled painfully for his first run and owed much to being ‘wet-nursed’ by Foster. Foster was almost totally ineffective with the ball, a single wicket for 106 in the amateurs’ eight-wicket defeat. Vicissitudes down to war 77