Lives in Cricket No 3 - George Duckworth

were pleased to be winning and seeing their bowling colleagues, like Harold Larwood, enjoying some success against Don Bradman and company, nor, in the social conditions of the 1930s, could they have afforded, like, for instance, the amateur, Gubby Allen, the hauteur of being critical of Douglas Jardine. Like other English professionals, pragmatists all, he found the strategy less appealing when A.W.Carr, the Nottinghamshire captain, thought it would be interesting to turn Harold Larwood and Bill Voce loose in county cricket. There was a remarkable game at Trent Bridge in the post-‘bodyline’ domestic summer, during which there were foolish rumours of teams, including Lancashire, walking off the pitch, were leg theory deployed. Lancashire, battered and bowed, were 147 runs behind on the first innings, but, courtesy of a superb 109 from Ernest Tyldesley and 86 from the young amateur, Lionel Lister, they won by 101 runs, with three minutes to go. On this occasion the disciplines were forgotten and the Lancashire eleven emoted. ‘George Duckworth, whose body was badly bruised by the blows he had taken batting against Larwood and Voce, hurled the three stumps in the air, sending them spinning like Catherine wheels’, wrote Brian Bearshaw, the Lancashire historian and journalist. Even Ernest Tyldesley, in what was for him an undreamt moment of audacious zaniness, threw his cap in the air. It was on the voyage to Australia for the ‘bodyline’ series that the English professionals tumbled to the truth that Pelham Warner, their distinguished and patrician manager, had concealed his mistress aboard. George Duckworth rather gave the name away when approached about his forthcoming tie with her in some deck game competition. Asked if he knew his opponent, he responded, ‘oh, you mean Plum’s tart’, using the slightly indelicate sobriquet that had become his team-mates’ identity tag for her. George Duckworth was not yet done with international cricket. He played again in 1935 in one Test against South Africa at Old Trafford, and then he completed his national stint in 1936 with three Tests against India, when Ames was indisposed. Then Leslie Ames was justly regarded as the better choice as wicket-keeper and able batsman, although the athletic Leslie Ames was also a fine outfielder. George Duckworth saved the best individual moment to the last. The academic and eloquent cricket lover, John Ferguson, had no doubt that ‘Duckworth took the finest catch I ever saw.’ It was at Lord’s, at the beginning of their second innings, with the The Cricket 39