Lives in Cricket No 20 - Maurice Tompkin

crowds are not known for their optimism, and his arrival at the crease was greeted with grumbles from the crowd as many wended their way to the exits: ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, Fred, I can’t see us winning now.’ Even the more positive thinkers doubted the imagination of skipper Les Berry for failing to send in Jack Walsh, whose hitting into Milligan Road was becoming legendary. This temerity was thrown back in their faces, for Pickering and Jackson added 140 in just 90 minutes. Cliff Gladwin bowled the last over with seven runs still required. Jackson took a single off the first, Walsh three off the second, and then Jackson straight drove a six off the third to win the match with three balls left. For Leicestershire, the remainder of the season was something of a disaster. They lost five of their remaining eight matches, winning only their last home fixture against Warwickshire, a match in which Maurice contributed little, but perversely until then he enjoyed a fine run of form. Between 9 July and 20 August he played 20 successive double-figure innings, scoring 958 runs in the process. This run included two centuries. Against Sussex at Hastings, he scored 163, his top score of the season. He hit 24 fours and a six (off Charlie Oakes), and batted just over 195 minutes. The largest partnership was with George Watson, with whom he added 163 in 100 minutes for the third wicket. Leicestershire’s mammoth 547 was their largest of the season, and was enough to get them first-innings points, but though they led on first innings, the wicket was too easy for them to force a win. They used eight bowlers in the attempt, including an over of mystery leg-spin and googlies from Maurice that went for 11 runs. His fourth and final hundred of the season was scored against Somerset at Grace Road. This innings of 122 included sixes off Johnny Lawrence and Bertie Buse, and he helped Les Berry add 118 for the third wicket, in an innings lasting 160 minutes. Though they were within five runs of making Somerset follow on, Leicestershire collapsed in their second innings to 120 all out, and Somerset won easily by six wickets. The News Chronicle annual evidently liked these centuries; it changed his description to ‘Forceful batsman.’ The amazing summer of 1947 closed for Maurice with two festival matches in September, both of some historical interest. At Harrogate, he went with George Watson, Les Berry and Jim Sperry to play in the match between M.Leyland’s XI and The Rest. The game had several senior cricketers playing, some of whom had not played since the war, and they included W.H.Ashdown, the former Kent player, who because of this match became the only man to play in English first-class cricket before the First World War and after the Second. The following week he was selected by Plum Warner to play, at Hastings, for his team against the South of England. In most other years, this would simply be another festival game, but this year, Denis Compton was just War and Peace, 1940 to 1949 57