Lives in Cricket No 20 - Maurice Tompkin

The Leicestershire gate book for the season records the attendances for each day, and also the weather. This makes depressing reading. It is not until Friday, 11 June that any entry as positive as ‘fine’ appears, and even then play started an hour late whilst the ground dried out from the previous day. On Monday, 19 July the weather was described as agreeable for the match against Essex at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, and over 1,000 people paid at the gate. At the end of the August Bank Holiday week, the weather turned hot, only for it to collapse into more wet weather and the total abandonment of his benefit match against Lancashire. Only in the final week of the season and the two last home games was the weather mockingly settled and warm, but by then everyone had stopped caring. For Maurice the season is best described as in and out, and that did not just apply to the sun. In some ways it was a re-run of 1951, with selection for the early season match for MCC against the champion county, Surrey. A duck and 17 were his scores, though in the second innings his contribution of 17 was out of an all-out score of 88, thanks to Laker and Lock utilising the damp wicket effectively. At Derby, a valiant century in just over three hours, when all about him were falling to Cliff Gladwin and Les Jackson, was followed by two failures against Surrey at The Oval. The county club were still sharing the Grace Road ground with the City Education Committee, and the fixture list was never balanced. The first home match was in the middle of May and was against the Pakistani touring team, making their first visit to England. The weather was more appropriate to November than May, and Jack Walsh bowled them out on the first day. It was then Maurice’s chance. In his largest first-class innings, he scored 186, hitting 14 fours in an innings lasting five and three quarter hours. His first 50 took almost two hours, and his hundred another 100 minutes. Captaining Pakistan was A.H.Kardar who, from his time at Oxford and Warwickshire, was familiar with Maurice’s batting. On Saturday evening, he noticeably deepened the field when he came in, and on Monday he managed to restrict his scoring. There were few characteristic cover drives in the innings, the bulk of his 15 fours being on the leg side. Maurice got to 99 by hooking Ikram to fine leg for four, and facing the left-arm slow bowling of Shujauddin Butt in the following over, he pushed the ball to mid on for a hurried single to reach his century. After being dropped at mid wicket on 152, he was finally caught there by Kardar, off Shujauddin, for 186. It was, the Mercury proudly reported, the first century against the touring team and it took Leicestershire to a first-innings lead of 190, but Pakistan, thanks in particular to Hanif Mohammad and Maqsood Ahmed batted themselves to safety. The following weekend Maurice was at Lord’s again for the MCC v Pakistanis match. He was a late selection for the match, replacing Denis Compton who yet again was having problems with his knee. Was this a final chance to make an impression in front of the selectors? Maybe it is wrong to ascribe too much into the team selection, as it ranged from established 94 Senior Professional