Lives in Cricket No 19 - Frank Sugg

could take pleasure from scoring his first hundred for Lancashire (and second in first-class cricket) and in such demanding conditions and circumstances. The bad weather was to ruin many a match in this season: ‘pitiful wet’ was one paper’s description of the summer. With wickets uncovered and often ill-prepared, conditions in 1888 generally favoured bowlers and help to explain why many batsmen, Sugg included, failed to match their performances of the previous season. But his hundred at Gloucester put Frank Sugg into the public eye; and of course the innings was witnessed at first hand by W.G.Grace who was to captain England later in the season. After a couple more matches for Lancashire in one of which, against Oxford University, he scored 58 runs, Frank Sugg was chosen to play for the North of England against the Australians at Old Trafford. The North side consisted of players from Lancashire and Nottinghamshire only as Yorkshire had a clashing fixture but was still strong enough to give the Australians a hard game, the visitors winning by five wickets with ten minutes to spare. In the North’s first innings of 93, Sugg scored 27 and figured in an important partnership of 49 for the sixth wicket with Barlow when, in the words of one report, ‘his cricket – invaluable in its way – was a contrast to that of his partner’. It was assumed that readers would know that Barlow played a stonewalling role. In the North’s second innings, Sugg scored 24 out of his side’s 96, again figuring in a useful partnership with Barlow after the North had lost their first five wickets for 14. In helpful conditions, Turner and Ferris took 19 wickets between them in the match. Sugg had shown that he could hold his own against the Australians’ two star bowlers. After this match, and before the team for the First Test match at Lord’s was to be announced on 10 July, Lancashire had two county matches but Sugg failed to score in his one innings against Yorkshire and made only 16 in the one innings he had against Middlesex. It would have been no surprise that his name was not among the eleven chosen, by a sub-committee of MCC, to represent England in the Test. The eleven comprised four amateurs W.G.Grace, A.G.Steel, J.Shuter and W.W.Read; and seven professionals, W.Barnes, W.Gunn, W.Attewell, M.Sherwin, J.Briggs, R.Peel and G.A.Lohmann. Last-minute changes were made however: Bobby Abel, whose omission in the first place had been roundly criticised, replaced Shuter when he became unavailable, and it was decided that Attewell could be released in view of the Early Seasons with Lancashire 52