Lives in Cricket No 20 - Maurice Tompkin

150 minutes to reach three figures, he shared in a partnership of 161 for the third wicket with Charles Palmer. He did not dally in the 90s. A straight drive took him to 95, and then a quick single to 96, before he thumped John Lawrence straight again for four. Though they declared, achieved a good first-innings lead and left themselves plenty of time to bowl Somerset out, they were still three wickets short of victory at the end. Ashby and a Saturday of torrential rain was next, followed by a Sunday playing at Hinckley, a match which should have been one of the highlights of the benefit summer, but played on a cold and dismal day, and watched by a crowd of only 400. The star names scheduled to play included Arthur Jepson, the Nottinghamshire player, who was at that point manager of Hinckley Athletic, a position fromwhich he was shortly to be relieved, as he did not attend the early season matches. The Hinckley team included not only M.J.K.Smith, but also Roger Goadby, later to be the Leicestershire club treasurer, but then the Hinckley Grammar School captain and wicketkeeper. Back at Ashby on Monday, the match could at least be played under two-day rules. Maurice scored 86 out of a second-wicket partnership of 158 with M.J.K.Smith, which enabled Leicestershire to ask Essex to follow on, but once again they were thwarted. By the end of July, his benefit committee were getting worried. Billy Butler told the Leicester Evening News : ‘By this stage in the season, I would have expected £2,000 to have been paid in, but we have only just reached £1,000. The Sunday matches have been badly affected. We’ve only had one fine weekend, and then we were playing away.’ The comments though did not improve the weather: a game at Wigston was totally washed out, and though there was play at the picturesque Newtown Linford ground on the edge of Bradgate Park, the weather did its best to prevent cricket. Leicestershire were away at Northampton for their traditional Bank Holiday match. Though it was interrupted by the weather, Leicestershire lost by an innings; Maurice followed a first-innings duck with 38 in the second. Wednesday, 4 August was a unique day at Grace Road in 1954 – it was the only day in the summer described as ‘hot’ in the gateman’s log book. You can imagine Maurice and his committee saying to each other as they entered the ground, ‘Let’s hope it stays like this until after the weekend.’ Well over 3,000 people attended, the largest crowd of the season at Grace Road, and even better, Leicestershire were batting by 5.30. Thursday too, started fine, but the dreaded rain came back after tea, and returned with renewed vengeance, washing out Friday’s play completely. Lancashire, at the time eleventh in the championship table, and a side well accustomed to wet weather, duly arrived at Grace Road for the first day of Maurice’s ‘flagship’ benefit occasion. Under the conventions of the day, the beneficiary had to pay the costs of the match, as well as receive the gate receipts. Whilst the second Saturday of August was never as popular with Senior Professional 97