Lives in Cricket No 36 - WE Astill

123 The Test Player The newly minted international returned to his county in their ‘Jubilee Year’ 230 to serve under a new captain in Eddie Dawson, his recent colleague in South Africa and now also a Test player. Although the season 231 consisted largely of drawn games, 18 out of 28 in the Championship and 21 out of 31 in all, rain was not the great spoiler of the previous year and no fewer than six batsman exceeded 1,000 runs while a seventh was only 33 short. Astill was one of the six, although he did not quite reach the target in Championship games alone and was only seventh in the averages at 24.97 for 1,099 runs. Only four losses offset six victories, but five of the latter came in successive matches in a period of 21 days, leaving spectators a little to cheer about in an otherwise rather barren year. Nevertheless, a position of ninth was achieved, and, but for Geary being so restricted in bowling by a surgical operation that he delivered only 124 overs for a mere six wickets, they would surely have finished higher. Astill valiantly bore the brunt of the bowling, easily topping the county averages with 126 wickets at 21.61 from 1,220 overs, and so once more completing the ‘double’. Remarkably his most onerous bowl came near the end of the season in late August when he still had the energy to deliver 330 balls in taking the first four wickets for 169 runs out of a total of 488 for five in the only innings of Lancashire, destined to be Champions for the third successive time. 230 This was marked at the end of the season by a one-day match when Sir Arthur Hazlerigg bowled lobs and Duleepsinhji top-scored with 67 before his dismissal by Astill. 231 The cricket correspondent for the Leicester newspapers is now ‘The Cardinal’. Leicestershire side of 1928. Standing (l to r): J.C.Bradshaw, L.G.Berry, H.A.Smith, H.C.Snary, N.F.Armstrong, T.E.Sidwell, S.C.Packer (secretary). Seated: A.Skelding, G.Geary, E.W.Dawson (capt), W.E.Astill, A.W.Shipman.