Lives in Cricket No 3 - George Duckworth

said Harold Larwood simply. From the sepia photographs of the time, and from the greying memories of the oldest of the old generation of cricket aficionados, emerges the honest, pugnacious, bright-eyed countenance of, in Neville Cardus’ phrases, ‘a terrific little fighter, the Game Chicken, palpably a Lancashire lad – nay, better still, a Warrington lad’. He was, says Cardus, ‘galvanic and rapacious’ rather than graceful in style. He was, then, an aggressive wicket-keeper, never content passively to prevent the byes and pick up the throws-in. It must have been extremely unsettling to wait at the crease in the uneasy knowledge that George Duckworth was, alert and hungry, lying in wait. The batsman was in the position of a front-line soldier, faced with the head-on attack of the bowler, but discomposed by the knowledge that, to the rear, a guerrilla resistance force was preparing to strike. There was something of the wrecked German ammunition train, blown sky-high by the maquis resistance fighters, about a Duckworth stumping. It was a genuine execution, with wickets demolished and bails flying like shrapnel. His trademark appeal was, in one respect, a necessary part of this campaign of insurgency against the terrorised batsman. It was loud, high-pitched, exultant, declamatory and insistent. He would draw himself up to his inconsiderable height and raise a judgemental arm upwards toward a higher authority. After Chaucer’s The Nun’s Priest’s Tale , Neville Cardus baptised him ‘the Chanticleer of wicket-keepers’, and there was something of the crowing cockerel – but it was more than that. It was not so much a tentative accusation as a passionate call for condign justice. ‘If you are going to appeal’, explained ‘Ducky’, ‘you might as well make sure the umpire hears you.’ Although not averse to shouting, he did not jabber appeals as repetitively as some of his present-day chatterbox counterparts. Mainly, this was because he was a fair man, while he was also wisely aware that constant appealing might prove counter-productive. When he appealed, he was absolutely sure of his case. He was more judge than prosecuting counsel. One must intercede another word here about George Duckworth as entertainer, an artist properly conscious of the hard-earned coins that went to pay his wages and the need to ensure they received their money’s worth. These hosts were not the straggles of hardened adherents one finds dotted about the grounds of The Cricket 44