Lives in Cricket No 20 - Maurice Tompkin

The usual early-season matches were played, including the well-supported match on Victoria Park against the Leicester and County Cricket Association in which Maurice scored 50. As Packe was still travelling home from Egypt where he had been playing against H.M.Martineau’s XI, C.S.Dempster was captain in the first county match, against Sussex. The photographs of the match show Dempster leading out the Leicestershire team in front of … precisely no one. The pavilion and adjacent stands are totally empty. The highlight of the Leicestershire innings was a partnership of 65 in 40 minutes between George Dawkes and Maurice, with ‘Tompkin specialising in thumping drives and Dawkes in pulls and spendidly timed cuts’. Collapses before and after left Leicestershire with only a moderate 229 on the board, a hefty first-innings deficit and ultimately defeat by seven wickets. In fact this innings flattered to deceive. Though he batted for over two hours when he scored an unbeaten 48 against the West Indies, it was the beginning of July before he scored his first 50. Leicestershire had a dreadful season, and it was clearly not a good environment for a young player to be learning the game. Issue one was that he certainly experiencing ‘second-season disease’. Secondly, his early playing mentor, George Geary, was absent, and though Dempster captained the team until the arrival of Packe in June, they had by that stage lost three out of five games, including an awe-inspiring loss by an innings and 193 runs to Northamptonshire, of all opponents. In many poor seasons, Leicestershire were able to be comforted by the knowledge that their nearest neighbours had done worse. This victory by Northamptonshire was their first since 1935, and in the Leicestershire team only Gerry Lester outscored Maurice, with 32 and 13 in the match, which illustrated the problem. Things hardly improved when Michael Packe took over, making his captaincy debut at Fenner’s. He led the team to defeat in all of his first seven championship matches in charge. The only game where there existed a shred of satisfaction was the sixth of these, against Worcestershire. Leicestershire conceded a first-innings lead of 28 runs, though in the course of his innings, Maurice reached the landmark of 1,000 runs in first-class cricket. In their second innings, Worcestershire, thanks to an unbeaten 184 by Edwin Cooper, declared on 357, leaving Leicestershire 386 to win in the fourth innings in four hours. For once the three youngest batsmen came off in the same innings, and Maurice was involved in two key and rapid partnerships. He put on 91 in an hour with Michael Packe for the fourth wicket, and later on added 82 for the seventh in 64 minutes with Laurie Thursting. When he was finally out, trapped lbw to Roley Jenkins, Leicestershire needed 90 with only the three fast bowlers to keep Thursting company. He added 50 with Haydon Smith, but the task was too much for Jim Sperry and Bill Flamson, and so defeat ensued by 24 runs. Leicestershire debut, 1938 and 1939 31