Lives in Cricket No 27 - CB Llewellyn

103 Radcliffe Buck’s, was to join the ranks of their professionals. Cecil Parkin had continued his career in the Lancashire League after departing from Lancashire county in 1926, but his performances for East Lancashire in 1931 had been rather ordinary for him and he was twenty-first in the league averages for the season, with 32 victims at 11.18 apiece, when he dropped out of the East Lancashire side in mid-season. The outstanding wicket-takers in the Lancashire League were the 58-year-old Sydney Barnes, with 115 victims at 6.30 each, and Learie Constantine, 91 at 9.02. Now Parkin was to join Tonge who had finished sixth in the Bolton and District League table in 1931. Supporters of each team had quite a wait for their encounters, both of which took place in the second part of the season; in fact the match at Tonge was the last fixture of the season for both clubs. Buck did well in each match, scoring 62 not out at home in July, as well as collecting four wickets for 58. In the return match Buck’s bowling figures were seven wickets for 84, and he hit up 21. There were, though, to be no more contests between Buck and Parkin. In 1932, Llewellyn’s performances at last showed a decline; this was soon clear in his batting. He had to wait until the first Tonge fixture, the fourteenth in Radcliffe’s list, to achieve a substantial score, that 62 not out mentioned above which he followed with only one more, 66 versus Eagley in the penultimate match. In 13 innings he scored ten or less. Deterioration was less obvious in his bowling, as he captured five or more wickets in an innings on nine occasions, but five of these performances came in a row in matches two to six of the fixture list. Radcliffe were clearly not going to finish at the top of the table and they ultimately finished sixth, while in its edition dated 14 May 1932, The Cricketer noted: Thirty years have rolled along since Llewellyn played in his first Test against that powerful Australian side captained by J.Darling, yet here he is … showing that his arm has certainly not lost all is cleverness. Last week he captured six Bradshaw wickets for only 48 runs out of a total of 139 … . On 6 August, it reported: ‘Llewellyn of Radcliffe took six Walkden wickets for 32, an effort which greatly helped his side to win. He is remarkably well preserved for his years … .’ But then, on 27 August 1932, there came news: G.N.Francis, the West Indian fast bowler, has arranged to play with Radcliffe, a Bolton League club, for next season. He has been with Seaham Harbour, a Durham Senior League club, …