Lives in Cricket No 26 - HV Hesketh-Prichard

36 Portsmouth and Patagonia rigidly after the War, most famously in Walter Hammond’s case when he moved from Kent to Gloucestershire. Lord Harris was particularly keen on enforcing the rules but it seems to have been mostly professionals that felt his wrath. The Hampshire connection seems to have come about through Conan Doyle, who had possibly suggested him to Teddy Wynyard, who had captained Hampshire in 1899. Wynyard was a serving soldier and because of the Boer War, though he was serving in Britain, had given up the captaincy for 1900. Wynyard was reputed to be the ‘worst-tempered man in England’ and this was delicately alluded to when his caricature appeared in Vanity Fair in 1898 and it suggested ‘he can hit straight in more ways than one; and he might have gone to Australia with Mr Stoddart. But he did not – it seems to have been because of his military duties. He can speak his mind; and he is supposed to think less of K.S.Ranjitsinhji than some of the public do.’ It appears that Ranji and Wynyard had a huge argument after Ranji helped himself to some of Wynyard’s grapes. 19 Wynyard was also a great accumulator of runs; indeed it was said that he had made more hundreds in all cricket than anyone except W.G. himself. He also would seem to have kept a note of most, claiming to have scored 150 hundreds in all classes of cricket and not being averse to filling his boots against poor opposition: in 1896 for the Sandhurst staff against the Staff College he scored 261*. The Hampshire Record Office has one of his scrapbooks, mostly with press cuttings from everywhere showing his hundreds. Peter Wynne-Thomas remarks of Wynyard that in 1898, when he was nominally the captain, he played only three Championship matches, pleading that military duties kept him away, though at least twice he actually turned out to play somewhere else. 20 Indeed there had been some muttering about this at the Club’s 1897 Annual General Meeting, where the Committee’s report said that: it was essential in the main to have a good professional side. That meant an expenditure of money, and in the South they had a difficulty in getting much gate money. The committee were endeavouring to establish a nucleus which would go on increasing and do good service in seasons to come. Next to having a professional side, the best thing would be a good amateur side, composed of players who could play together all the season. In Hants they could not do that because most of their players had their private businesses or professions to attend to. That was a point that the public should not lose sight of, for their players had played as often as they possibly could. It had been remarked that Captain Wynyard and Captain Quinton had been playing in local matches when county matches were being played. There was a great deal of difference between a one day and three days’ match, and they were able to play in a local match when they could not get away to play for their county. 19 Simon Wilde , Ranji: A Genius Rich and Strange, The Kingswood Press, 1990. 20 Peter Wynne-Thomas , The History of Hampshire County Cricket Club, Christopher Helm, 1988, p 61.