Lives in Cricket No 20 - Maurice Tompkin

players, as was Tommy Chapman, a ‘reserve’ batsman who had played over fifty times since the war. Les Berry played his last season in 1951. Replacing these players and building a new teamwas a significant task, and there is no question that Palmer looked upon Maurice as a key person to help him achieve this. The season’s outcome, sixteenth position in the Championship, with only three wins and thirteen defeats, does not sound promising. To this must be added defeats by both universities and what can only be described as annihilation by the West Indies touring team by an innings and 249 runs. For Maurice, now 31, it was his best season to date, and he scored 1,889 runs, with five hundreds. Two of them were important in helping the county secure victories. In fact the season started promisingly with a six-wicket victory in the second match, a low-scoring affair at Pontypridd. Jack Walsh, with a match return of ten for 75, was the main architect, though a second-innings opening partnership of 77 between Gerry Lester and Les Berry was the best of the match. Maurice with 24 and a second-innings duck contributed little. The following week, at Trent Bridge, Nottinghamshire obtained a first-innings lead of over 300. Leicestershire were helped in their survival attempt by an injury to Arthur Jepson, but they were even more indebted to a partnership between Maurice and Vic Jackson that put on an unbeaten 184, with Maurice reaching his 100 just before stumps were drawn with Leicestershire just 41 ahead. Leicestershire’s fixture list was still dominated by the need to play the majority of matches at Grace Road during the school holidays. The Whit holiday brought the first home matches of the season. The first of the three games was against Surrey. Dull weather and rain interruptions kept the crowd down, but a Tompkin fifty, scored in just over an hour, was the impetus Leicestershire needed to secure a first-innings lead in a game that was drawn. Years of Plenty, 1950 to 1953 68 Cartoonist’s eye view. Maurice Tompkin and his Leicestershire colleagues, Paddy Corrall and Charles Palmer.