Lives in Cricket No 19 - Frank Sugg

But if 1895 was to be anyone’s season, that accolade has to go to the 23-year-old Archie MacLaren. In the previous winter he had toured Australia with A.E.Stoddart’s side and was re-appointed Lancashire’s captain for the 1895 season. But he had accepted a teaching post at a Harrow prep school and had to absent himself from the side after a couple of early games. He returned to the side for the match against Somerset at Taunton in July when, opening the innings with Albert Ward, he scored 424, breaking W.G.Grace’s record for the highest individual first-class innings, 344 for MCC against Kent in 1876. MacLaren’s almost chanceless innings 74 lasted for seven hours and 50 minutes. One of a number of enterprising partnerships in Lancashire’s total of 801 was one of 95 runs in 45 minutes with Sugg for the fifth wicket, Sugg scoring 41 in that time. Later in the season MacLaren scored hundreds in three successive innings and he topped the Lancashire averages by a wide margin. Sugg played in 21 of his county’s 22 championship matches but his was a rather disappointing season. He made some useful scores early on, including 125 against Kent, but after that innings his performances fell away with 43 in the penultimate match of the summer against Middlesex his next highest score. All told, he scored 779 runs at an average of only 22.91, fifth in the Lancashire averages (of those playing at least 10 matches). Rather surprisingly perhaps, he was chosen for the Players against the Gentlemen at Lord’s. His performance in this prestigious fixture mirrored that of Lancashire Stalwart 79 Old Trafford in 1895, with its then new pavilion and, to judge from the batsman’s position, perhaps Frank Sugg batting. He played in 111 first-class matches on this ground. 74 Though Sugg reported that he was told ‘on the highest authority’ that S.M.J.Woods’ first ball to MacLaren ‘distinctly grazed the stumps but not with sufficient force to dislodge the bails.’ Frank Sugg Pocket Cricket Annual , 1897, p 46.