Lives in Cricket No 19 - Frank Sugg

second day he took his score from 59 – some reports say 60 – to 204. At the end of his innings, caught by an unidentified substitute, he was completely exhausted, in part perhaps because his innings contained eight threes. Johnny Tyldesley was the next highest scorer with 63. Gloucestershire did not entirely crumble after this onslaught but were all out for 238, W.G.Grace carrying his bat for 102, seven wickets falling to Johnny Briggs, leaving Lancashire the victors by an innings and 18 runs. Although it was his highest score, Sugg’s 220 was far from chanceless, even though the red Lillywhite annual thought it ‘an exceedingly fine display’. Early in his innings he was given not out after a ball grazed his glove and was caught by the wicketkeeper, a decision which had W.G. grumbling and chuntering throughout the match, and he was missed three times during his innings, albeit only one an apparently easy chance. Frank Sugg had no qualms about standing his ground when he knew he was out, taking the pragmatic, if unethical, line: ‘Of course a batsman has to take good and bad decisions as all in the day’s work. If you get given in when you’re out it is as well to remember that sometimes you’re given out when you’re really in. A sort of rough justice gets done in the end.’ 76 In the Golden Age of the amateur cricketer, this might seem a professional’s view of how the game should be played, but Sugg could have reflected that W.G. was not pure white when it came to the game’s ethics and even as haughty an amateur as Archie MacLaren admitted to not walking when he knew he was out. 77 What view Frank took about the issue of walking when he came to don the umpire’s coat himself is another matter. The Australians were touring England again in 1896. There was little chance of Frank being chosen for the England side but he did encounter the Australians in five matches. Two of these were for Lancashire and three were for invitation sides, C.E. de Trafford’s XI, the North (for which fixture no Yorkshire or Derbyshire players were available), and a rather weak Players team at Leyton where he captained a side for the first time in his first-class career. The Australians won all these matches with some ease. Sugg’s contributions were modest. His highest score in his ten innings was 25 in Lancashire’s first match against the tourists. Frank would have been disappointed by his performances in these matches but he did have the satisfaction in mid-season, straight Lancashire Stalwart 81 76 Sporting Chronicle , 1 August 1916. 77 Michael Down, Archie: a Biography of A.C.MacLaren , Allen and Unwin, 1981, p 49.