Lives in Cricket No 18 - FR Foster

reminded him about what cricket should mean? Warwicks did try however and reached 179 for five at 5.26 an over. Foster, who made it clear he did not sympathise with Surrey’s tactics, opened the batting, posted a quick 25 and he and Smith added 50 in 35 minutes. The best innings though came from Charlesworth. His century came in 70 minutes; no faster hundred has ever been made for Warwicks where runs have not been ‘given’ in pursuit of a declaration. Quaife, at The Oval, and Charlesworth here, both scored centuries in each innings against Surrey in 1913 – a unique achievement. Surrey’s London rivals Middlesex now came for Edgbaston’s final game. Foster won the toss but apart from Quaife his side batted carelessly, their total of 187 being most disappointing. Foster’s dismissal – stumped by Joe Murrell off Tarrant – typified the attitude. Middlesex replied with 350 on a deteriorating wicket and Warwicks then collapsed to an innings defeat, and a generally undistinguished Edgbaston season drew to a close. Two ‘out’ games remained. Sussex at Hove saw another disappointing effort and a six-wicket beating. Then it was Northampton, scene of the greatest day of Foster’s life only two years earlier. Now Northamptonshire were fighting for a top place and Warwicks were also-rans. Unfortunately rain spoiled a pretty even match. Foster at last started taking wickets again, with five for 73 in a long and persistent first-innings spell. As the game began to fade away however, Foster showed that he had given the season up when he gave six overs to young batsman Len Bates, whose bowling was described by a future colleague as resembling a woman turning her arm over under the handicap of too-tight stays. He did however dismiss opposing captain Syd Smith. The 1913 season saw Warwicks decline from ninth to eleventh, with percentage points slipping from 47.77 to 39.16. They were now on the margins of the ‘no-hopers’, barely better off than Worcestershire. A county of tiny resources, Northamptonshire, had for the second successive season finished in the top four. Foster himself had a statistically poorer time than in 1912. In 22 first-class matches he scored 829 runs, av. 23.02, took 92 wickets at 25.48, and held 14 catches. A slight batting improvement was offset by a marked bowling deterioration. The generally better weather certainly affected his record but it is hard to work out how. In Australia the hard wickets had helped him; in 1913 the opposite was suggested, while taking into account more favourable conditions his batting was very similar. Wisden stated: ‘Quite early in the summer Mr F.R.Foster found it necessary to take a rest.’ It added: ‘Had Foster been the Foster of 1911 the record of the team would, no doubt, have been vastly different. Unfortunately he was not himself. Only now and then did he bowl with his old fire and spin off the pitch, and as a batsman, though he made 111 against Hampshire at Southampton, his aggregate of runs was only 782 and his average 23. The comparative ineffectiveness of his bowling may be judged by the fact that his ninety one wickets cost over twenty four and a half runs each.’ The 80 Vicissitudes down to war