Lives in Cricket No 23 - Brief Candles

48 Hove in an away fixture against Lewes Priory. Later in the season he scored 59 and took six wickets in the same game for Brighton Brunswick against Eastbourne, six for 74 for the Brunswick against Worthing, and seven for 23 for Hove against Old Yorkonians. Good performances, but nothing that suggests that this 42-year-old, as he became in August 1920, should have been playing at a higher level. 72 And yet, on 3 July of that year that is precisely what he did – officially at least. For that date, as well as being the day of Hove’s fixture at the Dripping Pan ground in Lewes, was also the first day of Herbert’s one and only first-class match. So although neither he nor anyone else knew it at the time, on that day he was officially playing in two matches, one of them first-class, simultaneously. There were a number of last-minute drop-outs from the Gentlemen’s side for the game at The Oval, including Ranji who, it had been hoped, would captain the side. With Hampshire, Sussex and Kent all playing Championship matches, the opportunity to fill the gaps with gentlemen from ‘the South’ was very limited, and the ten-man side that took the field when the Players batted was not a strong one. You might have thought that, having won the toss, the Players would have had the decency to insert their depleted opponents; but there was a big crowd in attendance on the first day, who were no doubt keener to see Jack Hobbs and Co bat, rather than a side that – Percy Fender, Jack Crawford and Nigel Haig apart – had only 50 first-class appearances between them. In the event, the Players ran up their big first-day total without taking the game too seriously; a highlight reported in The Times was the dismissal, lbw, of Hobbs to ‘an atrocious ball … one of the worst balls bowled at The Oval for many a long day’. 73 Hobbs had, however, made 115 by this time, so the crowd were not too disappointed. 74 As an allrounder, Herbert would probably have expected to both bat and bowl on days two and three of his first-class debut, if only he had had the chance. We know he batted right-handed – he and his older brother Sidney required their nephew Percy Fender to bat right-handed even though his natural inclination was to bat left. At club level Uncle Percy usually batted in the lower middle order, or less often, at least by 1920, as an opener. We know less of his bowling, though one report of a club game in that year talks of his ‘deceptive changing pace’, which unfortunately says nothing about whether his basic pace was quick or slow. His greatest contribution to cricket came, however, not in having a decidedly odd first-class career, but in the nurturing, with brother Sidney, of the oldest son of his sister Lily. She had married Percy Robert Fender in 1891, and Percy George Herbert Fender arrived in August of the following 72 All details of his club performances over the years are taken from relevant editions of the Brighton Gazette. 73 The bowler was Keith Wilson, of Brighton Brunswick and Sussex. But maybe this was all part of a cunning plan on his part: the source cited in footnote 75 tells us that ‘many a wicket he took with what the batsman thought was an easy delivery to hit, and then found out his mistake’. 74 Wisden , though, sternly described the match as ‘little better than a farce’. Never Seen