Lives in Cricket No 27 - CB Llewellyn

49 to 610 runs in only six hours. Buck, whose bowling figures came out at one wicket for 119, was eventually able to make a point in reply. Describing Hampshire’s follow-on, Wisden was enthusiastic if terse in its description: ‘Hampshire played up pluckily at the second attempt, Johnston doing very well, and Llewellyn’s vigorous cricket being almost beyond reproach …’. His stay at the wicket lasted only 135 minutes, while he hit one six and 23 fours, earning a collection of £16. He escaped dismissal c and b Fielder at 63 by virtue of a no-ball. He was particularly severe on Blythe and while Greig, Sprot and Langford joined him in useful stands, he sailed on to his highest championship score, 158, undefeated when the last man was out. ‘But,’ concluded Wisden , ‘Kent won by an innings and 37 runs.’ Kent thus took the title: Hampshire, for the first time in five seasons, finished in the top half of the championship table. * * * * * * * Surely to finish the season of 1906 in such stupendous form would be an encouragement to him when the following season began? To answer the question will not take very long. In 1907 Buck suffered a strain and was absent from the county side between 20 June and 29 July. The injury occurred when he was bowling his first over in the Kent match at Tonbridge, when the home side went on to score 596 and to win by an innings. In the second match of the season, he had claimed six victims for 97 as Hampshire crashed to defeat by an innings to Surrey at The Oval and followed up with four wickets for 69 in a drawn match with Middlesex at Lord’s in mid May. He achieved little of note with the ball up to the time of his injury; similarly at the crease, in his first ten innings his highest total was only 33, before, against Yorkshire at Park Avenue, Bradford at the end of May, he played splendidly for 98 when no-one else could cope with the left-arm deliveries of Wilfred Rhodes, in what turned into a rain-soaked draw. He played useful innings of 40 and 24 in a surprise defeat of Kent, while an innings of 61 against his South African compatriots must have cheered him. But that match, like so many others in 1907, was spoiled by the weather. Following his return to the Hampshire side on 29 July, he played a further 13 innings, with a highest score of 40, to achieve an aggregate of 184. At the same time he had an odd experience in the match with Derbyshire; he collected four victims, at the cost of 66, but was the eighth bowler to turn his arm over, as Hampshire Triumph in England