Lives in Cricket No 19 - Frank Sugg

Despite his increasing involvement with Burnley, Frank continued to play for Derbyshire in 1886, beginning with Derbyshire’s match against MCC at Lord’s and followed by nine championship and two other first-class matches, against the touring Australians and for the North against the South, but the seeds of trouble in Sugg’s relationship with his county had already been sown. Derbyshire began well enough as MCC were beaten at Lord’s by an innings and 28 runs. But MCC fielded a weak side, an indication perhaps of the mustard that Derbyshire cut at Lord’s, and even then Sugg scored only nine. Far stronger opposition was provided by the touring Australians and in the event the visitors needed only two days to defeat the county at Derby by six wickets, Sugg scoring three and 23. It was after this match that Frank Sugg appeared for the North against the South at Lord’s. Usually considerable prestige attended selection for this venerable fixture but on this occasion the two sides fell well short of representative standard. Indeed, no fewer than four of the players, three for the North, made their first-class debuts in the match. After W.G.Grace, Frank Sugg was one of the more experienced players on show. The North won by nine wickets inside two days. Sugg scored 26 and nought, hardly impressive batting – especially when John White, in his first big match, and J.T.Parnham put on 157 for the last wicket in the North’s first innings of 305. In the County Championship, Derbyshire had a wretched season. Hampshire were replaced by Gloucestershire in Derbyshire’s fixtures though only for one match, at home at Derby. The first match of the season against Lancashire at Old Trafford was drawn but all the other county matches were lost. Frank Sugg’s contributions in 1886 were most disappointing, particularly after the encouraging season he had enjoyed in 1885. He scored 408 runs in 23 innings at an average of 17.73. His highest score was 62 against Yorkshire early in the season and in no other innings did he reach a half-century. This was not a level of performance that marked him out as a batsman of whom great things could be expected. As in previous seasons, there were too many occasions when he was dismissed early on for very low scores: in seven of his innings in 1886 he was dismissed for five runs or fewer. Given the difficulties he was encountering in his off-the-field position at Derby, it is very likely that Frank Sugg’s heart was not in his cricket for the county. Now 24 years old, he was an ambitious man and he must have realised his career was stagnating with a county that played few matches, whose county ground had poor facilities and a notoriously poor surface, and whose players Playing for Yorkshire and Derbyshire 39