Lives in Cricket No 27 - CB Llewellyn

17 slow-medium off-breaks, and Tom Soar, fast-medium, and to a succession of gifted amateurs; one of the best was A.J.L.Hill, a Southampton businessman, but many came from the armed forces, Captain Wynyard, Captain Bradford, Colonel Spens, Captain Quinton, and from 1898, Captain Poore. However, by 1899, Baldwin was overworked and his colleague wearing out, but it was probably too early for Buck to be aware of that. The outbreak of war in South Africa that autumn deprived them of their support from the military and in 1900 they were to sink to the foot of the table. Neither Llewellyn, nor anyone else, seems to have feared that he would have any problems in adapting his skills from playing successfully on matting, stretched over earth or grass, on which until the 1920s South African cricket was played, to performing on varied grass pitches in England, but he took to them like a duck to water. In 1899, Buck had one opportunity to display his skill in English first-class cricket. As reported in the weekly magazine Cricket : ‘With the permission of the Australians, Hampshire were enabled to strengthen their side by the inclusion of a new bowler, Llewellyn: the amateur …made a most successful debut in first-class cricket.’ (So much for his success in the Currie Cup and his appearances against Lord Hawke’s tourists in South Africa!) It added: ‘He nearly scored a hundred [in fact it was 72] in the first innings, playing all the famous Australians as if he had been accustomed to their wiles for ages, while with the ball he astonished his own side as well as his opponents. He is left-hand medium and has learned all the modern methods, just as he has in batting. He took nearly all the wickets …’. In fact he captured eight wickets for 132 from 40 overs to give Hampshire who had made 393 a first innings lead of 33. He claimed the wickets of the top six in the Australian order, who included Noble, Gregory, Darling and Clem Hill. Hampshire were able to declare their second innings closed, but the match petered out, the visitors set 246 for victory ending on 92 for three. These performances in his only first-class match of the summer certainly brought Buck or rather G.C.B. Llewellyn into the limelight; up to the 1909 edition of Wisden , the volume gave him those three initials, but the ‘G’ was a nonsense arising from a misunderstanding when the batting order was compiled in his debut match. Out of Africa