Lives in Cricket No 20 - Maurice Tompkin

been bowled, David Sheppard turned to Jim Wood, his opening bowler: ‘Take the new ball, but don’t take it out of its wrapping. Have a couple of practice run-ups. I’ll re-set the field for you.’ It was at this point, as Rupert Webb the Sussex wicketkeeper recalls, ‘Charlie Palmer appeared. He didn’t walk down the stairs. He came tumbling down, in a great hurry, and waved the batsmen in.’ David Sheppard turned to his team as they walked off: ‘I knew they couldn’t afford a new ball.’ In any event, a magnificent unbeaten 186 by Sheppard won the day with 15 minutes to spare and, once again, failure by the Leicestershire bowlers to dismiss the opposition on the final afternoon. June 9 therefore saw Leicestershire in a comfortable ninth position in the table, but with only half the points of the top two teams, Glamorgan and Surrey. Leicestershire now moved onto a southern tour. This involved Wednesday to Friday in London, playing Middlesex; a weekend in Bath, followed by another long journey across southern England to Tunbridge Wells and Kent. In none of them did Maurice score many runs, though his 40 in two hours in the second innings at Lord’s was Leicestershire’s highest score of the match, but it was not enough to prevent an innings defeat. Victory at Bath on a spinner’s paradise was thanks to remarkable bowling by Vic Munden, but batting was so hazardous that slogging was the most effective method for short periods. At Tunbridge Wells, play was abandoned with three hours left and Leicestershire needing another 180 runs to win. It must have been with a sense of relief and joy that the Leicestershire team returned to Leicester for a sequence of matches played at home: not that this meant Grace Road, for after a rain-ruined draw there against Lancashire, they played for a week at Hinckley. In the first match against Worcestershire, the final afternoon saw the county chasing 157 in a shade over three hours. After losing both openers with the score on 30, Maurice scored an unbeaten 56 in 135 minutes, winning the match with a three off Louis Devereux. Expectation must have been high for the match starting the following day against Warwickshire. The Coventry Road ground in Hinckley was only a mile or so from the Warwickshire border and, whenever possible, the Hinckley fixture was against that county. In fine weather, before a crowd of over 4,000 (indeed the largest attendance of the season apart from the Australian match and the August championship finale), Leicestershire did well to dismiss Warwickshire for 242. However, disaster struck, with Maurice caught behind by Dick Spooner off Jack Bannister to leave Leicestershire 3 for two, and sending the crowd home disappointed. It was a back-to-the-wall innings of 140 by Charlie Palmer in the follow-on which left Warwickshire with an impossible target. The return match at Hove was in sharp contrast with the excitement at Grace Road. Maurice batted over three hours for his 86, and the innings was not declared until the second morning. Sussex batted even longer and Years of Plenty, 1950 to 1953 83