Lives in Cricket No 26 - HV Hesketh-Prichard

5 Introduction Hesketh Prichard was a cricketer of genius. He had the ability to rise to the big occasion, and he had the certain mark of genius of being able to return to the game after a long absence and find himself as good as any cricketer playing. So said Eric Parker, his biographer. I first came across the name of Hesketh Hesketh-Prichard, as it referred to him, in the Hampshire County Cricket history published in 1957, when I was thirteen years old. In Harry Altham’s part of the book, he referred to him as ‘a most versatile man, he wrote admirable stories – his books almost rivalled Sherlock Holmes for popularity – hunted the Giant Sloth and was an expert in sniping in the First World War.’ 1 The impression I gained of his cricket – that he was a fast bowler who mainly toiled on unhelpful pitches for a side with some batting and less bowling – was not wrong, but all this told only a small part of the story. But it hinted at a romantic though largely forgotten figure. What I did not know was just how little of the man’s achievements those few lines reflected. There were a number of spectacular amateur figures in those Hampshire teams. C.B.Fry, Major R.M.Poore, Captain E.G.Wynyard, E.M.Sprot, all had notable achievements beyond the cricket field and played less cricket than they might otherwise have done, supported by a solid but mediocre phalanx of professionals. I knew little more about Hex, as he was always known, when I started research for this book. An early reference to the family produced more, and the main basis for this story comes from Eric Parker’s memoir. 2 Parker, though he knew enough about the game to write or edit books on it in later years, deals briskly with Hex’s cricket: understandable within two years of the early death of a man whose major achievements then seemed to be his wartime work. He had based his book on an unpublished memoir typed by Hex’s mother, Kate O’Brien Hesketh-Prichard, and I also had a copy of that as reference. Through this emerged the figure of a man for whom cricket was never the first thing in his life, but who played the game at all levels with great enthusiasm. To tell the story of his cricketing life unadorned would be to miss the point. That gentlemen batted elegantly while the players toiled with the ball is 1 H.S.Altham and others, Hampshire County Cricket: The Official History , Phoenix, 1957. 2 Eric Parker, Hesketh Prichard: A Memoir , T.Fisher Unwin, 1924.