Lives in Cricket No 23 - Brief Candles

60 sides, then as now, inevitably showed many comings and goings from one match to the next. So it was no great surprise that the Army made four changes for the game against Oxford to be played at the Royal Military College at Camberley, 90 due to begin on Saturday 25 June. One of these saw Harbottle selected in place of opener Lancelot Grove, who had made a century at Cambridge. The match began, on a warm but fresh day, with Harbottle opening the Army’s innings just as, 30 miles away at Lord’s, Wally Hammond was completing an innings of 240 against Australia in the Second Test. The Army lost their first two wickets for 56, but then Harbottle was joined by Reginald Hudson, who had also not played at Cambridge, and who was playing in what turned out to be the last of his 27 first-class matches. Between them they added 276 for the third wicket, 91 against a limited bowling attack containing no big names. The more experienced man dominated the stand, Hudson scoring all round the wicket in making his 147 in 190 minutes, which included a five and 22 fours. Harbottle is reported as giving chances when 23 and 71 – we do not know how straightforward, or otherwise, these might have been – but that apart, the partnership looked impregnable throughout. The two partners were eventually out in quick succession – it is not clear from available reports who was dismissed first, though it was probably Hudson. 92 Harbottle eventually fell for 156, caught at the wicket off the occasional slow left-armers of Desmond Eagar. His innings was described as ‘stylish’ by the Manchester Guardian ; from The Times we learn that he scored most of his runs on the off side, and that ‘he showed sound defence for four and a quarter hours’. The Daily Telegraph preferred to call it ‘stout defence’. Either way it was an effective, rather than a scintillating, innings, especially by comparison with Hudson’s. But it was a century on debut and at the time, the fourth-highest debut innings in all first-class cricket in England; 93 and not a bad first day in first-class cricket. 94 The Army ran up 450 for nine in 107 overs on that first day, and declared at this score when rain severely delayed the start on the following Monday. The University were then bowled out for 129, and were 174 for three in 90 Although the venue for this match is always identified as ‘Camberley’, which is in Surrey, the ground itself was and still is located in Berkshire. 91 This is the highest two-man partnership ever shared in by a batsman playing his only first-class innings, though K.Seth [see earlier table] also batted in a partnership of 276, in his case unbroken, but with two different partners (one retired hurt after adding 249). Incidentally, Seth is unique among those scoring a century in his only first-class innings, in that throughout his on-field career as a first-class batsman he did not witness a single wicket falling. 92 Available reports of Harbottle’s innings are limited to the brief reports in the national papers. Strangely, the local Camberley News , though reporting regularly on matches at the RMC, makes no mention whatsoever of Harbottle’s match. 93 Behind scores of 227 by Tom Marsden (Sheffield and Leicester) in 1826; 195* by James Ricketts (Lancashire) in 1867; and 158* by John Human (Cambridge University) in 1932. 94 To date, among cricketers making their debuts in England, only Hubert Doggart, with 215 for Cambridge University in 1948, and Mike Powell, with 200* for Glamorgan in 1997, have bettered Harbottle’s tally of 156 runs on his first day as a first-class cricketer. Runs Aplenty