Lives in Cricket No 27 - CB Llewellyn

95 three figures, but his cost him only 6.67 each. Buck finished only fourteenth in the bowling averages. On 2 June, he performed the hat-trick in a league match against East Lancashire, and hit up his highest score of the season, a meagre 55. Thanks to some other good performances of his with the ball, Accrington improving all round, rose to eighth in the table. On 7 July he passed a total of 5,000 runs in the Lancashire League. The season of 1924 saw Accrington, again eighth in the table out of 14, winning seven matches as against eight lost. They mustered 25 points in contrast to the 39 of Bacup, who went through the season undefeated and finished top of the table. This was a reminder of better times to supporters of Accrington who in 1915 were the only side to have gone through a season undefeated. The summer of 1924 was a cruel one for cricketers. The first four matches on Rishton’s list were ruined by rain, as were their last seven, and many of their rivals had little better luck. Brooking wrote in The Cricketer : ‘Llewellyn wears well and is still a tower of strength to Accrington. He recollected with great pleasure the jolly time he experienced in Philadelphia, when he was a member of Ranji’s team in 1899.’ As in the previous season Buck’s batting seemed to feel the effect of age: his highest score was again no more than 55, but 419 runs, at an average of 26.64 placed him sixth in the league batting averages, and only four of his rivals totalled more runs. He remained prominent with the ball: 89 wickets at 9.59 apiece put him twelfth in the averages. Only two bowlers, one of them McDonald, captured more victims, and only one other bowler bowled more overs. Most of the League players found batting hard going in a season dominated by the damp, and Buck took advantage of the conditions with a chain of successes beginning with five wickets for 41 against Bacup, the ultimate champions, six for 25 against Rishton gaining victory by seven runs, five for 34 in the match with Rawtenstall, ten for 46 in the two games with East Lancashire as well as six for 35 against Burnley, and finally eight victims for 78 versus Nelson. At 24.70 he easily headed the Club’s batting table; the highest rival could not do better than 14, and the next two men on the list hardly reached his aggregate between them. With 89 victims he captured more wickets than all the other members of the attack combined, whose victims numbered 83. As the 1920s advanced, the Accrington club had little to complain about. In 1926 they rose to fifth place in the League table, with Family Arrangements