Lives in Cricket No 20 - Maurice Tompkin

rain rather than the Essex bowlers, and Leicestershire won just before a heavy shower might well have ended play for good. At the end of the match, Leicestershire had played 26 and scored 152 points, Middlesex had played 26 and had 150 points, and Surrey were third, with only 24 played and 148. Great was the celebration, even though most would appreciate the mathematics of the situation, but the main thing was they were still first. The final two matches were an anti-climax. Maybe they were a reaction to the excitement of the Essex match, but they crumbled to a ten-wicket defeat by Nottinghamshire, Bruce Dooland bowling effectively, and in the final match of the season, the weather interrupted too often for anything more than a result on first innings to be possible. This final match, against Glamorgan, was deeply disappointing. Rain washed out play on the first day and curtailed it on the second. Though Glamorgan were bowled out cheaply enough, Leicestershire could not score quickly enough to set the visitors a target which would put them under serious pressure in their second innings. When Leicestershire had reached 87 in front with an hour left to play, Palmer decided that there was no chance of forcing victory, so he declared and sent Glamorgan in to bat, out of courtesy. A spectator, Antony Littlewood, remembers the final over of the 1953 season at Grace Road: Years of Plenty, 1950 to 1953 89 Who’d have thought it? The Leicestershire dressing room in August 1953 after their win over Essex had put them at the head of the Championship table. Their final outcome was third.