Lives in Cricket No 23 - Brief Candles

29 completed. In all, 12 out of the scheduled 27 days play in these matches were completely lost, with the games at Leicester and Bath both being abandoned without a single ball bowled; and on only eight of the other 15 days did the weather relent sufficiently for as many as 100 runs to be scored in the game in question. Northampton suffered as badly as anywhere. 11 June began with heavy overnight rain, with sharp showers following at intervals. Shortly before the scheduled start at midday another downpour ruled out any prospect of play before lunch. An inspection at 2 pm concluded that there was little chance of play before 4 pm, but an inspection at 3.30 pm brought more positive news: play would start at 4.30 pm if there were no more rain. This was good news for the ‘large number of spectators [who] had been waiting outside the gates, and a goodly company inside the ground’. The toss was made at 4 pm. Northants won and decided to bat; whereupon heavy rain promptly began to fall, and the prospects of any play receded once again. Nevertheless, sunshine followed and allowed a further inspection at 4.50 pm, which in turn led a decision to start at 5.20 pm if there were no further rain. One further delay held things up for 25 minutes before finally at 5.45 pm, ‘amid a cheer from the very patient spectators’, the teams took the field, umpire John Moss (or perhaps his partner Arnold Warren) called ‘play’: and Fred Hyland became a first-class cricketer. An ominous black cloud was hurrying towards the ground as Alec Kennedy bowled the first over to William Denton from the Football Ground end. The first ball reared awkwardly, but Denton played through five dot-balls before a misfield in the slips off the sixth ball allowed the batsmen to take a single. Jack Newman bowled a maiden to Denton from the other end, and then, as the players were taking their positions for the third over, and as Denton’s partner Dick Woolley was preparing to face his first ball, heavy rain began to fall yet again. So that was it for the day. And for the match too. Things looked promising on the morning of Thursday 12th, when there was bright sunshine until rain began half an hour before the scheduled start of play at 11.30 am. An early lunch was taken, with good hopes of a prompt resumption thereafter; but at 1.50 pm, or according to another source, just after lunch (perhaps they liked long lunches at Wantage Road) there was heavy rain for a quarter of an hour. The umpires inspected again soon after the rain stopped, and at 2.20 pm called off play for the day. The pattern of events on Friday 13th (!) was similar: heavy overnight rain, no play before lunch, an inspection soon after lunch, and abandonment at 1.45 pm. 46 So Fred Hyland’s first first-class match lasted twelve balls, probably well under ten minutes, and yielded just one run. As a new boy in the team, it seems unlikely that he would have been fielding in the slips, so it was probably not he whose misfield led to that run. Indeed, he may very well not have touched the ball at all. 46 The descriptions of play and non-play in the preceding paragraphs have been assembled from the reports in contemporary editions of the Northampton Daily Chronicle , the Northampton Daily Echo , and the Southern Daily Echo. Of the Late Frederick J.Hyland, again