Lives in Cricket No 23 - Brief Candles

106 He stayed with Derby for three more years, where long-time County follower Gerald Mortimer remembers him as ‘a graceful mover with a strong shot, but in my mental image I don’t see him as a great header of the ball.’ 172 But as time went on, knee injuries were reducing his effectiveness. Derby were relegated to Division Two for 1953/54, and at the end of that season Lee moved down one further rung to join Coventry City in Division Three (South). Sadly his cartilage troubles soon got the better of him, and during 1955 he was forced to retire from the game. He moved in rather less distinguished circles in his cricket career. The Who’s Who of Cricketers calls him a lower-order right-handed batsman and a right-arm medium-pace bowler; but although his claim to cricketing fame came as a bowler, in practice he seems to have had more ability as a batsman. The first we hear of him as a cricketer was when he played a couple of matches for Leicestershire Club and Ground [C&G] in the midsummer of 1947. He did not bat in a game that the C&G won by ten wickets, and scored 13 as an opener in the other game; he bowled only a single over in these two matches, as the sixth bowler used by his captain. In the following summer his eight C&G games brought him scores that included 81*, 75*, 48 and 41, all as opener or at three; but he bowled in only one of these eight matches. His last two recorded appearances for the C&G were in June 1950, when he again opened both times, scoring 48 and 51, and bowled in only one game. In the 12 C&G matches in which he is known to have played, he scored 395 runs at 43.88, but bowled a total of only 13 overs, though he did take three wickets in the process. He had played only the two C&G games in 1947 when he was unexpectedly selected in Leicestershire’s first eleven to play Glamorgan at the Arms Park in July 1947. Batsman-who-bowled Frank Prentice had to miss the game for business reasons, and Lee was perhaps seen as something of a like-for- like replacement. The selection of the local centre-forward was noted in the local papers, but at this time Lee had played only a single season of League football, and was not the bigger star that he later became. In reporting his selection the Leicester Evening Mail described him as ‘a useful batsman and excellent fielder, who learned his cricket with Quorn in the North Leicestershire League’, while the Leicester Mercury said that he was ‘regarded as a promising batsman and quite a useful fast-medium change bowler [who] has been under the wing of Emmott Robinson, the county coach, who is greatly impressed by his potentialities.’ 173 Cardiff was rainy for the match on 9, 10 and 11 July. Put in to bat, Leicestershire made 175, with Lee scoring three at No.8 – a much lower position than that usually occupied by Frank Prentice – and by the end of the first day Glamorgan’s reply had reached 77 for seven. Considering how little he had bowled in his earlier C&G games, it must have been something of a surprise when Lee was asked to bowl the second over of the innings; 172 In an e-mail to the writer dated 26 September 2010. 173 Leicester Evening Mail and Leicester Mercury, 8 July 1947. First Ballers, and a Mystery