Lives in Cricket No 27 - CB Llewellyn

53 Chapter Ten The Beneficiary The award of the Kent match at Northlands Road, Southampton was a great compliment to Buck, now in his thirty-second year. He took his benefit in his eighth full season; there was a convention, no more than that, such rewards came after ten years’ service. Beginning on 30 July 1908, it was the most attractive fixture on Hampshire’s calendar; Kent had won the County Championship for the first time in 1906 and were to repeat their success in 1909, 1910 and 1913. They boasted a number of dynamic players – several hard-hitting batsmen, both amateur and professional – Kenneth Hutchings, S.H. and A.P.Day, J.R.Mason, James Seymour, Punter Humphreys and Wally Hardinge, as well as the up-and- coming Frank Woolley, left-handed with bat and ball; he was by 1908 also a leading member of the attack, of which the doyen was the great slow left-armer, Colin Blythe. Attractive as they were as opponents in a benefit match, they were formidable adversaries. There were complementary references to Buck. The Hampshire Red Guide for 1908 was fulsome in its praise. After noting that following his triumphs in 1901 and 1902, the strain of the additional winter in South Africa (an oblique way of reminding readers of his successful Test series there against Australia) seemed to have told on him, for though he had returned to England in time for the season of 1903 and had remained here ever since, ‘he never quite came up to his old form as a bowler’. He had probably never played a better innings than that 158 not out against the full strength of the Kent bowling in 1906, and in August 1905 he had joined the ranks of those who had scored two hundreds in a match with his 102 and 100 against Derbyshire. Buck had developed into a magnificent field and had no superior, if any equal, at mid off: He works whole-heartedly to the full and to the last, at both bowling and fielding. His example in the field has done much to make the Hampshire professionals the fine fields that they are. He was uniformly courteous and loyal, and was a model professional.