Lives in Cricket No 3 - George Duckworth

Levett as keepers, faced the same delicious problem in the inter-war years. It meant that, for a cricketing generation and for all but four seasons between the two World Wars, Lancashire never had to think twice about the wicket-keeping position. A third advantage for George Duckworth was his recruitment into an excellent team. Except for his last two summers, when Lancashire slid rather alarmingly to eleventh and ninth, the county were never out of the top six in the County Championship. With George Duckworth behind the stumps, the side was sixth twice, fifth once, fourth thrice, third twice, runners up once and winners five times. They had a hat-trick of successes, in 1926, 1927 and 1928, and two further titles in 1930 and 1934. Apart from a shared title with Surrey in 1950, Lancashire, lamentably and for all the glamorous splendour of their superb record in limited overs competitions, have found the County Championship pennant elusive. Lancashire have won the title outright on seven occasions since 1890, that year of official sanction for such matters, the other two times being way back in 1897 and 1904. In particular, they were the team of the twenties; from George Duckworth’s arrival to 1930, Lancashire always took one of the first three places. Thus did Lancashire crush its major passage of first-class triumphs into a tiny phase of cricketing chronology, so much so that Red Rose adherents of a versifying sort might have recalled T.O.Mordaunt’s celebratory lines: Sound, sound the clarion; fill the fife. Throughout the sensual world proclaim. One crowded hour of glorious life Is worth an age without a name. Whether Lancashire’s obdurate opening pair of Harry Makepeace and Charlie Hallows quite lived up to the billing of ‘the sensual world’ is a moot point. Along with the equally prudent Frank Watson, they built platforms of wary solidity in match after match. In their wake came the likes of Ernest Tyldesley, not as murderously dramatic as his famed elder brother, John Thomas, but an unfussy exponent of the classic principles, which he utilised with uncommon efficacy. His 34,222 runs form Lancashire’s weightiest aggregate and he is the only Lancastrian to have scored a hundred first-class centuries. The Cricket 26