Lives in Cricket No 20 - Maurice Tompkin

Against Sussex in a high-scoring match where only the first innings were completed he scored 36 and put on 101 for Leicestershire’s fourth wicket with G.L.Berry. He was dropped when he scored 24 but by then had reached 500 runs for the season. The short journey to Northampton marked Maurice’s first experience of the Bank Holiday local derby, and perhaps his first adverse comment from a member of the crowd. Northamptonshire had not won a match for over three years, and with their recent poor form Leicestershire were reluctant to be the team to break that record. With Leicestershire’s two most stubborn batsmen, Norman Armstrong and Frank Prentice, putting on 93 for the third wicket, run scoring was far from fast. Coming in at 130 for three, Maurice took some time to get his eye in and in the first half-hour he scored only two singles. This did not please one spectator from Leicester: ‘Ah’ve come all the way from f****** Leicester to watch you pair. Ah wish I ‘adn’t bothered!’ This of course made no difference to Armstrong, who was used to such criticism, but Maurice started to play some strokes, driving Herbert for one four and square-cutting another and at the other end hitting R.P.Nelson for four to square leg. In a flurry of incident, Armstrong completed his century and Timms then bowled Maurice with the score unchanged, the partnership eventually adding 75 in as many minutes. Leicestershire finished up with a score of 352, and though they managed to achieve a first-innings lead of just one run, they did not leave a sufficiently tempting target, and the match was drawn. The second match of the August Bank Holiday week was against Yorkshire, and 6,000 people, the largest crowd of the season after the Australian match, were there to watch the future county champions. Maurice, in something of a return to form, scored 45 in two hours ten minutes out of Leicestershire’s first innings score of 297 before falling lbw to Hedley Verity. In addition to Verity, the Yorkshire attack included Bill Bowes and, in this match, Morris Leyland, by far the toughest attack Maurice had faced in a county match so far. Yorkshire scored over 400 in reply and Leicestershire were bundled out for just 69 in their second innings to lose by an innings. Maurice’s 45 impressed Herbert Sutcliffe, who wrote of Maurice: ‘I think he is easily the most accomplished batsman in the Leicestershire side, and should go in much earlier. You see he is the last of the recognized batsmen and receives no encouragement when wickets are falling, and would do much better as a No.3.’ It took a mere twelve years, and the arrival of Charles Palmer as captain, for this advice to be followed up. Maurice’s first season of county cricket ended with a duck against Worcestershire, bowled by Peter Jackson on a rain-affected pitch, and two scores under 20 in an innings defeat at Hove. At the end of July, the secretary reported that Leicester City F.C., where Maurice had started to pursuing his other sporting ‘option’ before the start of the cricket season, had agreed to release Tompkin to play till after the Yorkshire match ending on 5 August, and they would do their best to release him after that if they Leicestershire debut, 1938 and 1939 28