Lives in Cricket No 34 - Frank Mitchell

6 The Aeneid , Virgil]. ‘A man of strong character, Mr Frank Mitchell was an inspiring leader, with a genius for spotting the weak spots of opposing batsmen. He was especially happy in this respect when he led South Africa through a most successful tour over here [1904]. ‘When going Mr Mitchell was an extremely fine batsman to watch; the pity was he never performed half of what he promised to do in his early days. It was unfortunate both for England and for Yorkshire that circumstances should have carried him off to South Africa at a time when he bid fair to become one of our stock batsmen.’ Those brief passages suggest there is more to know about Frank Mitchell. The following pages will be an attempt to fill in our knowledge of a player who shone brightly over the game of cricket for too limited a time span, but who yet offered and gave much to it. Introduction