Lives in Cricket No 34 - Frank Mitchell

67 Chapter Ten A remarkable season, and a lost opportunity 1901-02 Frank Mitchell was in London on 1 May 1901 at the Annual General Meeting of MCC, and was able to witness his friend and mentor, Lord Hawke, elected onto the MCC Committee. The next day he was at the Crystal Palace Park ground at the invitation of W.G.Grace and playing for London County against Surrey. This was a game with first-class status and his scores of six and nought must just have posed a question mark about his capacity to raise his game again. His mood would not have improved when on 6 May he was back at Lord’s and playing for Yorkshire against MCC. Innings of two and four must have brought forward further doubts. Happily Yorkshire did not doubt his ability and after a solid 30 at Bristol against Gloucestershire, he not only kept his place in the team for every championship match but became Yorkshire’s premier batsman in a year in which they retained the County Championship. With F.S.Jackson in South Africa, he captained the side when Lord Hawke was absent. The first experience of Yorkshire captaincy was before 25,000 people at Old Trafford at the Whitsun match against Lancashire, and it is probable that he also captained the team in the two later games against Leicestershire. All three matches were won by Yorkshire. Yorkshire had a very settled side in 1901. There was no Test cricket in England that year, though a touring team from South Africa played some keen cricket. A consequence of the lack of Tests was that Yorkshire lost no players for representative games, and the only player that they greatly missed was Jackson, still fighting the Boers. The Yorkshire team for the first home game against Worcestershire probably represented their best available side – and very strong it was, too. That team of John Tunnicliffe, J.T.Brown, David Denton, T.L.Taylor, Mitchell, George Hirst, Ted Wainwright, Lord Hawke, Schofield Haigh, Wilfred Rhodes and David Hunter was a most powerful combination. In August Mr Ernest Smith of Morley, the Eastbourne schoolmaster, would play. Lees Whitehead had 14 games so it was those 13 players who carried the Yorkshire burden. There were times when Hawke and Mitchell were the only amateurs in the side, with Taylor joining them in 20 matches. Their success together, with the great skill of the professionals, saw Yorkshire win 20 out of 27 matches and finish the Championship way ahead of Middlesex and Lancashire. One match was lost (of which more shortly) and the straightforward system of one point for a win and a deduction of one point for a loss, saw Yorkshire head the table with a points average per completed match of 90.47 compared with Middlesex’s 50.00 and Lancashire’s 37.50.