Lives in Cricket No 20 - Maurice Tompkin

Maurice Tompkin in a display of ‘merry hitting’ top-scored with 51 in 76 minutes, including a six off Ray Illingworth, and though Wardle ended with seven for 74, Yorkshire still needed 179 to win in 130 minutes. Yorkshire changed their batting order, and Wardle and Watson put on 67 in no time. Wardle strode down the wicket to Jeff Goodwin, in one over hitting him for three fours and in another over hit Jackson for a six and two fours. With the score at 135 for four, and Watson well set, Yorkshire were coasting to victory. However, Watson was then caught by his old colleague Smithson on the boundary, and Yorkshire lost quick wickets. When Bill Foord came out to join Fred Trueman, the last wicket needed to produce 25 runs in half an hour for Yorkshire to win. At this stage in his career Fred Trueman was certainly not in the mood to hang around; he was also partnered by one of the select band of cricketers who took more wickets than they scored runs. He hit Vic Munden for three fours in one over, and had hit another in his next, before he moved fatally and briefly out of his ground, only to be stumped by an electric bit of wicketkeeping by Jack Firth, another Yorkshire exile. Leicestershire were home by six runs, and had secured victory over Yorkshire for only the second time in 42 years. Top-scoring in both innings, and batting in two styles, Maurice was at the very peak of his form. His second innings, scored in tricky conditions against the finest left-arm slow bowler in the country, must count as one of his best. Momentum was now starting to build; over 20,000 paying customers had watched the momentous week at Grace Road. The county now moved a few miles north to the Brush Ground in Loughborough, to play Kent and Surrey. Kent were in some disarray. They were to finish sixteenth in the table this season, and had finished fifteenth the year before. The Leicester Mercury announced on the morning of the match that ‘Kent sack Murray-Wood’, referring to the departure of Bill Murray-Wood as captain. He was replaced by Doug Wright, the senior professional. He however was not playing in this match, and so Kent committee handed the captaincy to Colin Cowdrey, then a second-year undergraduate at Oxford. It must have brought back many memories for him as he went out to toss for innings with Charles Palmer. As a young schoolboy at Tonbridge, he had been coached by the great Leicestershire player, Ewart Astill. As Cowdrey’s parents were in India, he spent his summer holidays with the Fox family who farmed at Peckleton, midway between Hinckley and Leicester. Whilst there, he played some cricket for Maurice’s old club, Leicester Nomads. In fact in 1947, he had played in the annual Leicestershire Public Schoolboys v Gentlemen of Leicestershire fixture. In a letter he later wrote: ‘Had Ewart not died early, I would have played for Leicestershire. Such fun playing in Les Berry’s benefit games in 1946 – Maurice Tompkin, etc.’ and later on, whilst Maurice’s boys were at Trent College, he wrote a complimentary piece about them for The Cricketer which he sent to Sheila. Years of Plenty, 1950 to 1953 87