Lives in Cricket No 36 - WE Astill

128 The Test Player in both disciplines was even more dismal, his 13 wickets costing 526 runs and his seven innings earning just 88 runs. But at least in the Tests his bowling figures were superior to those of the aged Wilfred Rhodes and only Voce took more wickets. The hard and plumb wickets in the Tests generally made bowling a thankless task, but, given his experience of the conditions, his repeated batting failures must be put down to the very fast bowling that he regularly faced and that he heartily disliked. 236 His only contributions to the First Test in Barbados were the single wicket of the centurion Roach, a single run before he was caught by the athletic Constantine off Griffith and some economical overs in the second innings. At Port of Spain he did contribute to England’s only victory of the drawn series with statistically the best bowling performance of his short Test career, four for 58 in 24.1 overs; and his wickets did include two of the first three batsmen in the order, W.H.St Hill and R.L.Hunte. He also scraped up 33 runs in his two innings combined. In the match at Georgetown, West Indies’ sole victory, his 28 overs in the first innings were battered for 92 runs by Roach and Headley and he mustered only five runs as a batsman, but once more he managed four wickets in an innings (for 70 runs) in limiting his opponents to a second innings total of 290. His victims included Roach again, lured forth to be stumped by Ames, and Constantine, bowled for nought. Finally, in the timeless Test at Kingston, batting deservedly as low as No.9, he finally made some runs, but a score of 39 in a total of 849 is barely noteworthy. He then helped to give his side a lead of 563 by dismissing Barrow and two tail-enders before, with skipper Calthorpe failing to enforce the follow-on, he added ten runs to England’s enormous lead before being bowled, his final runs in Test cricket. Despite Headley’s grand 223 West Indies were never likely to score the 836 needed for victory, but they had lost only five wickets before England sailed for home, the timeless Test left unfinished. Astill, however, had the consolation of a final wicket when he bowled the opener Nunes as the batsman neared a century. His career figures for England thus showed 190 runs at 12.66, 25 wickets at 34.24 and seven catches. Fred Root proclaimed ‘perhaps the most glaring denial of a right to wear the “Three Lions and a Crown” – the English “home” badge − is that of Ewart Astill’. 237 His Test figures away from England do not give strong support to such a claim, but what if he had been selected in the early to mid-twenties of the century when his bowling was more incisive and generally quicker? What if one were to include his personally successful representative matches in the West Indies and India shortly before those countries were granted Test status in 1928 and 1932 respectively? And what if he had been given the opportunity to play for England at home, bowling on familiar wickets more suited to his spin and batting in conditions often more conducive to swing than to outright speed? 236 He was run out once and dismissed by a slow bowler once and fast bowlers five times. Similarly seven of his eight dismissals in the South African Tests were at the hands of fast bowlers. 237 A Cricket Pro’s Lot , p 100.