Lives in Cricket No 36 - WE Astill

115 Chapter Eleven The Test Player Hitherto in the inter-war years Leicestershire had been let down by weak batting, a poor complement to their generally incisive bowling. Their sudden rise to seventh place in the Championship in 1927 is therefore probably to be attributed to the effect of Ernest Hayes as coach who oversaw an improvement in nearly all his players’ batting averages, including that of Astill, usually batting now as low as No.5 or 6, whose average of 39.72 was nonetheless by some way the best of his career and would probably be worth over 50 today. The county lost only three matches, their record until they lost only one when winning the Championship for the first time in 1975, but, after standing second to Lancashire at one point, they declined in the appallingly wet weather of July and August, Wisden percipiently pointing out in its review of the season that ‘as almost everyone of the Leicestershire bowlers is best suited by a pitch with life in it, the long spells of wet weather reduced the strength of the team in the field appreciably’. A contributory factor is indicated by the reduced workload and wickets of Geary and Astill, a likely consequence of weariness after the taxing tour of India. 219 The latter in particular had a poor time with the ball and averaged 24.33 for his 63 Championship wickets, failing for the first time since 1920 to complete the ‘double’. In both batting and bowling his season fell into two phases, the first, when the weather was often good, bringing him 1,223 runs in 18 matches at an average of over 55, the second a mere 211 at 14 in 13 matches (his highest score in his last seven innings was just 11). His bowling average for his first 21 matches was a respectable 23 for 54 wickets, that in his last ten matches 41 for only 11. 220 As a bowler he began the season promisingly with match figures of nine for 71 in ‘brilliant weather’ 221 on a good pitch at Worcester, bowling unrelieved during the second innings; but the home side was very weak and won only one match during the entire year while losing 17 to finish comprehensively bottom of the table. On only one other occasion did Astill take more than four wickets in an innings: in late July at Leicester his tight and patient 35 overs brought him six for 46 in Essex’ stubborn second innings and enabled his county to score the necessary runs for victory with five minutes to spare. Spectators probably appreciated especially his dismissal of J.W.H.T.Douglas, who had sorely tried their patience in scoring his 67 runs over the two innings at the rate of under 12 an hour. 219 Was the reduction in size of the ball this season also a factor? 220 Included here for the first half of the season are Leicestershire’s games with Oxford University and the New Zealanders and for the second an extraneous match at the Scarborough Festival. 221 In 1927 ‘Cover’ takes over as the regular cricket correspondent for the now promoted ‘Reynard’.