Lives in Cricket No 3 - George Duckworth

summer and at the comfortingly apposite venue of the Wagon Works Ground. Jack Sharp was captain, while included in the ranks were Cec Parkin, Lol Cook and Dick Tyldesley. Wally Hammond batted for Gloucestershire, and their main bowlers were Tom Goddard, George Dennett and Charlie Parker. Lancashire won by 75 runs. There was a critical point on the Monday afternoon of the match when George Duckworth contributed 34 towards a seventh-wicket stand of 87, batting in alliance with the amateur, Leonard Green, destined to be Lancashire’s skipper, who made 110. This assisted Lancashire in setting their opponents 225 to win and they were all out for 149. It was in this second innings that George Duckworth claimed his initial first-class victim, when he caught B.S.Bloodworth for 38 off the bowling of Dick Tyldesley. The Wisden report of the match says he earned ‘golden opinions’, and he doubtless batted in the ‘bent-kneed’ and ‘low’ posture attributed to him by Pat Murphy in his life of George Duckworth’s reluctant teacher, ‘Tiger’ Smith. Wicket-keeping or batting, George Duckworth always had a low centre of gravity. In all, he played 27 first-class matches in this his introductory season and he stumped 19 and caught 32, making for an impressive opening total of 51. He also scored 316 runs for an average of 12.64. Wisden pronounced majestically in 1924 that George Duckworth was ‘promoted from the second eleven, established himself as the wicket-keeper and gained many admirers, some good judges predicting the highest honours for him.’ He usually batted at nine or ten in this season, but went in first wicket down, as night watchman, despite being nobbut a lad, against Derbyshire at Old Trafford, when Harry Makepeace out for nought at the end of the first day. He was capped in 1924, quite early for those less extravagant days, and an indication by the county committee that he had been truly accepted as a regular player, ready for a capped player’s wages. For a further fourteen seasons, until his retirement in at the end of the 1937 season, he never looked back, nor lost his place as Lancashire’s wicket-keeper. He was blessed with one or two external advantages. One, as Neville Cardus was quick to note, was the ‘beautiful wickets’ that were prepared in those years at Old Trafford. They were of a constancy of bounce that must have given much confidence to a 24 The Cricket