Lives in Cricket No 26 - HV Hesketh-Prichard

17 been the leading bowler in the side the year before. On this occasion – on what The Fettesian described as ‘an excellent wicket’ – the Academy were bowled out for 17: Todd took seven for 6 and Hex three for 8, bowling unchanged. Fettes replied with 79 (Hex run out for 7) and the Academy lost their first five wickets for 22 before rallying to 99 (Hex two for 19). Fettes scored the 41 they needed without losing a wicket. This was a good start and it is worth noting that all five of his wickets were bowled, something that was going to recur throughout his career. The following week Fettes played Merchiston, batted first, and scored only 89 with a dramatic tail-end collapse (Hex 0). Merchiston passed this total for the loss of four wickets, then batted on and with the score at 93 Hex did the hat-trick – Merchiston were bowled out for 99 and are shown as having won by ten runs. So the hat-trick came with the game already lost: but Hex’s overall figures were six for 30 – and five of them clean bowled. It was common practice in the one-day games to play out the innings until the close of play, and often to express the result in terms of runs where the team batting second won. On 17 June Fettes took some hammer from Blair Lodge, who scored 253 for four declared (Hex one for 56), Fettes replying with 169. Against Grange CC, where The Fettesian said ‘they had got together a very strong side’, on 24 June Fettes scored 83 and Grange replied with 148, Hex taking four for 51. W.H.Smith 9 took five for 43 bowling lobs ‘though he was twice hit out of the ground in his first three overs’. Grange, based in Edinburgh, was, and still is, one of Scotland’s leading clubs. In 1896 they went so far as to tour England, including a match against MCC at Lord’s, and in fact after the original Scottish Cricket Union collapsed, Grange ran the game in Scotland from 1883 to 1909. On 27 June the eleven played Mr Wilson’s XI, ‘mostly masters’, who scored 175 for eight, the school replying with 58 for six and the game being drawn. 30 June brought a two-day match against Old Fettesians, and Hex went wicketless (16-4-41-0) as the old boys scored 208. The school’s response was 52 and 54 (Hex 0 and 0), and they signally failed to provide entertainment for the Saturday, which was Founder’s Day, since at the start of Saturday morning they were 15 for six in the second innings. The Old Fettesians were captained by Malcolm Jardine, father of Douglas, who had been Fettes’ first player of distinction. His Wisden obituary remarks that Malcolm Jardine began cricket at Fettes, and when captain in 1888 he went ahead of all the other boys by averaging 77 with the bat and taking 24 wickets at 6.3 each. H.Hamilton Fyfe, quoted in A Hundred Years of Fettes , said ‘Cricket was not in those days [the 1880s] the Fettes game. Little distinction was shown until M.R.Jardine came to the front as a batsman … but the level of the cricket played at this time was not high’. On 8 July Fettes played Trinity College, Glenalmond and were out for 150. The match was drawn, but Trinity College were hanging on at 81 for nine, with Prichard getting three for 25. On 13 and 14 July came the big one 9 Not that W.H.Smith. India, Jersey and Edinburgh