Lives in Cricket No 23 - Brief Candles

6 performance, only to disappear into cricketing obscurity once their match was over. Finally, there is a chapter on a cricketer who must, I suppose, be regarded at first-class level as one of ‘those who didn’t’ but who has nevertheless spent – and continues to spend – a full and fulfilled ‘life in cricket’, and who as such makes a fitting conclusion to a book in the present series. I have inevitably had to concentrate on British players, but I have also listed players from elsewhere with comparable, or near-comparable, one- match careers. If any reader has any further information about any of these players, or indeed about any of the Britons (and Irishmen) who form the main focus of the book, I would be delighted to hear from them. Unlike other volumes in this series, the chapters that follow do not constitute full biographies of the players concerned. The sheer obscurity of several of them means that information on some key aspects of their lives, in or out of cricket, is lacking. So there are inevitably gaps, or unanswered questions, in the following pages. In particular I would have liked to be able to say more about the cricketing style of the players considered here, and about their on- and off-field character. But the passage of time and other circumstances mean that there is often little if anything available on these subjects. What I have found on them, I have sought to include; but I apologise if any reader feels that these aspects are inadequately covered. Please be assured that it is not for want of trying. I also acknowledge that parts of several of the chapters may appear to fall into the trap of too many cricketing biographies by simply detailing players’ performances match-by-match, or best-performance-by-best- performance. In mitigation, I plead that the unfamiliarity of the cricketers concerned means that this is necessary for an understanding of their cricketing skills and abilities, and for addressing the question of how they became first-class cricketers at all. I regret it if these sections read a little encyclopedically; but I make no apology for including them. In putting Brief Candles together, I have had assistance from a huge number of people, most of whom I have contacted out of the blue and who have been only too willing to help in this project. Sadly there have been rather more than a few cases where attempts at contact have been made but not responded to; in particular, researching this book has brought home to me how little interest in, or awareness of, history there seems to be among some cricket clubs, which is a tragedy for those of us who like to delve into the game’s past. But so it goes. The most significant of the many positive contributions are gratefully acknowledged in a separate section towards the end of the book. Reading, Berkshire December 2011