Lives in Cricket No 26 - HV Hesketh-Prichard

74 and they had been going to co-write the story, but once Sherlock Holmes was involved Conan Doyle did it on his own. The Worplesdon match was to be a regular affair for the next few years. Philip Trevor then wrote up Hex in The Tatler as their cricketer of the week. He talks about him in an Authors v Artists match where Hex made 74 in 40 minutes when he ‘preferred a stroke which made the ball pitch over the on-boundary to any other pet stroke’. Hex played a few more games for Hampshire this year. On 17 July it was Yorkshire at Bournemouth. Yorkshire made 491: Hex was the best of the bowlers with four for 87 from 28 overs. It was however his only chance to bowl as Hampshire made 172 and 152. He had risen to No.9 in the batting order. The game was immediately followed by Worcestershire, again at Bournemouth. Hampshire batted and made 449. Greig, able to play more this season, made 187 before retiring hurt. Hex went in at No.8 and made ten. Worcester made 434, Hex bowling 31 overs and taking three for 116. The Hampshire second innings was declared at 261 for six, with Hex being sent in at No.7 and making 29 before being stumped off Simpson- Hayward. Worcester were set 277 in 145 minutes, and managed it for the loss of five wickets off 50.2 overs. Hex bowled only seven overs taking none for 35: Baldwin took four for 87 in 18.2 overs. Then it was up to Southampton to play Somerset. Somerset made 374, Hex working again, 23 overs bringing him three for 128. Hex successfully did the nightwatchman thing again, going in on the first evening when Alex Bowell retired hurt with a split finger. Hampshire were 23 for none at the close. Hex was out for 11 the next morning but Hampshire got to 350. Somerset declared their second innings at 297 for eight (Hex 14-1-66-2) but the target – over 300 in two hours, or what turned out to be 43 overs – was clearly excessive. It looks as though Teddy Wynyard thought so. While Arthur Hill made 118*, batting with a runner for his second hundred of the match, Wynyard stayed to the end for 18* with Hampshire 150 for none. Somerset used nine bowlers and the game had clearly dribbled away. That – at the end of July – was Hex’s last first-class game of the summer. For Hampshire he had taken 29 wickets at 21.75 but had only been really effective in the one game, and in all first-class matches 39 at 24.41. According to Kate he also played a fair amount of minor cricket this year, following his election to the Free Foresters and I Zingari. Indeed at the start of August he played in the Longford cricket week, on the edge of the Peak District, playing for Longford against Osmaston Manor, Mr J.H.Smith’s XI and a Derby County football club eleven. Longford was a seat of the Earls of Leicester, and in 1904 Hex had a note from Sybil Crutchley, part of the family, congratulating him on 100 wickets for the season. In the same year there appeared a little book called Cricket on the Brain under the pseudonym ‘MCC’: it was published by and may well have been written by T.Fisher Unwin. His biographical note for Hex was brief and to One of the Gentlemen