Lives in Cricket No 21 - Walter Read

90 1897 ...was his last season in first-class cricket. It started with a spot of illness and convalescence. W W READ who is getting over a rather bad bout of influenza, was off yesterday to Paris for a short holiday to recuperate, in view of the approaching strain of a heavy cricket season. Captain Key and H D G Leveson-Gower will be the other amateur regular members of the Surrey Eleven this summer. It is just on the cards that a fourth amateur, in the person of a well-known young cricketer may also find a place. 160 The fourth amateur to whom reference is made is probably H.B.Chinnery who was to play 30 matches for the county over the next eight seasons. There was one little contrast at the Oval on Tuesday that tickled me a good deal, though it appeared to pass unnoticed by the crowd. After lunch, the first players to return to the field were the Surrey captain and WW, who strolled out together in earnest confab. They had scarcely reached the wicket when out of the pavilion side by side came Leveson-Gower and Chinnery. Old Surrey and young Surrey and what a contrast. By the two burly, stalwart veterans the youngsters looked slim undeveloped boys. Are they likely in days to come, I wonder, to approach the great deeds of their elder comrades? Leveson- Gower may be a worthy successor to Key; but one doubts if Chinnery will ever be a Walter Read. The Oval authorities have a high opinion of him, though, I know, and there is no mistake about his keenness. 161 Read was about to retire with iconic status, the gold standard against which future aspirants were measured. I was talking of the veterans and especially Mr Walter Read, one of my earliest cricket heroes, and one in whose doings my interest has never varied. The great things which he has done for the county are almost innumerable, but they appear to be almost forgotten…There is a list of just fifty centuries, nearly four-fifths of them made in matches as to whose first- class calibre there can be no difference of opinion. No other player, save WG and Arthur Shrewsbury, can show such a 160 Cricket 15 April 1897 161 Cricket 13 May 1897 Surrey and England 1888/97