Lives in Cricket No 3 - George Duckworth

Africa in 1924 half way through his own second season. What a thrill - a first Test cap awarded on his own home ground after barely a season and a half of first-class experience. Alas, the meteorological gods were unkind, if not unexpectedly so. It rained and rained. Only 165 minutes play was possible. At least, George Duckworth managed to get on the field, for South Africa batted and made 116 for 4; no wickets to George and eight byes conceded on an exceedingly damp wicket. He had replaced G.E.C.Wood, the Cambridge blue and Kent amateur, in an ‘experimental’ side after England had won the first three Tests easily. Herbert Strudwick came back for the fifth Test. He had to wait patiently for four years to make what he must have regarded as his genuine debut. These had been the last grand years of Herbert Strudwick’s reign behind the English stumps, and others had been tried, such as George Brown, the Hampshire all-rounder and occasional but top quality wicket-keeper; Harry Elliott, of Derbyshire and later a fine umpire; and even Harry Smith, from Gloucestershire, who kept wicket in his only Test match. England were in something of the same transition phase in respect of the wicket-keeping post that Lancashire had been a year or so previously. In 1928 George Duckworth was chosen for the third and final West Indies Test at the Oval, replacing Harry Elliott. The West Indian bat, O.C.Scott, proved to be a considerate opponent. Duckworth caught him off Maurice Tate in the first and off Harold Larwood in the second innings. The new wicket-keeper made 7, not out, and conceded only eight byes in both innings, in a game England won easily. It had the effect of providing George Duckworth with a berth on the boat to Australia for the 1928/29 tour of Australia. Famously, a strong England side swamped Australia by four matches to one, including a 675 runs margin of victory in the first Test ever at Brisbane. George Duckworth had fourteen victims and the county syndrome was repeated at international level. He gloried in the luxury of playing in a great side, with Jack Hobbs and Herbert Sutcliffe in the van, and, in his turn, he supplied the vital and essential ingredient of an attacking wicket-keeper. Among the minor sensations of the tour were his standing up to Maurice Tate, a precursor of Godfrey Evans’ post-war equivalent binding of talent and temerity in respect of Alec Bedser, both bowlers being noted for their pace off hard pitches. Walter Cornford, the Sussex The Cricket 35