Lives in Cricket No 20 - Maurice Tompkin

score 66 runs for victory. Edrich and Compton opened, with the other batsman sitting behind the sightscreen, padded up and waiting to go in. Jim Sperry, the only Leicestershire bowler above medium pace, opened the bowling to an unusually defensive field, with no slips and six men on the boundary. After two overs, the score was 26, and after 10 minutes there were 33 runs on the board. With the score on 46, Jackson hit the stumps with a direct throw, but Edrich was adjudged in. This was the closest Leicestershire got to a wicket, and when Compton made the winning hit, four minutes play remained. Leicestershire’s bowlers Jim Sperry and Vic Jackson had managed seven overs in the 21 minutes Middlesex needed to knock off the runs. The match does illustrate Leicestershire’s problems during this baking summer. The only bowler above medium pace was Jim Sperry, and his opening partner was normally Tony Riddington who was much slower. The bulk of the work was done by Vic Jackson and Jack Walsh, supported by Gerry Lester and his leg spin. For once in this sun-drenched summer, rain dominated proceedings at Huddersfield, and Yorkshire did not declare their first innings closed until the start of the third day, by which time they had accumulated 167 runs in 88 overs. Plenty of time then to chat with his footballing colleagues from Huddersfield, including Albert Watson, for it was a good match for footballer-cricketers. Albert’s younger brother Willie, now with Sunderland but formerly with Huddersfield, top-scored with 60 for Yorkshire. Leicestershire’s reply was even slower, and was barely one run an over until Maurice joined George Watson, no relative, but an amateur football international. Together they put on 54, or more accurately, Watson partnered Maurice while he scored 53 in 41 minutes. As was so often the case, he was particularly severe on Johnny Wardle, driving him for 6, 4, 6, 4 and 2 off successive balls in one over, and two more fours in the next. Excitement continued in the return against Derbyshire at Grace Road at the end of July. They must have badly wanted to avenge their earlier defeat at Ilkeston, but the first two and half days were not promising. Replying to Derbyshire’s first-innings score of 357, they only avoided the follow-on with the ninth-wicket pair of Jack Walsh and Paddy Corrall at the crease. Building on their substantial first-innings lead, Derbyshire declared, leaving Leicestershire 391 to win in 270 minutes. Les Berry and Tony Riddington departed early, but Maurice played an ‘exhilarating’ innings of 70, scored in only 85 minutes, in useful partnerships with George Watson and Frank Prentice to provide a platform for the final assault on the target. He was dismissed by a smart catch by Dusty Rhodes at deep mid off; the ball, in the opinion of the Leicester Mercury correspondent, never left the ground by more than a foot. With little more than 90 minutes left, Vic Jackson was joined by the former Essex amateur, Harry Pickering. He was playing only his second match for the county, and in the first he had bagged a pair in the defeat by Gloucestershire. In the first innings he had scored just one. Leicestershire War and Peace, 1940 to 1949 56