Lives in Cricket No 36 - WE Astill

145 The Captain the ‘glorious’… Another tuneful melody is about an old brown teapot, or something of that sort… ‘Can’t those Welshmen sing?’ remarked one man on the pavilion when Glamorgan were at Aylestone-road. But they were not Welshmen – they were what one might almost call Ewart Astill’s Concert Party, for he is the ukelele expert, and, presumably, the concert leader as well. As captain he was keen that everybody should be as fit as possible throughout the season, and his side’s fielding was better and more alert than it had been in recent years. His first triumph was, of course, that home game against Sussex, the first victory of a professional captain in the county’s history and one won by Geary and Smith who bowled all but two overs. Those two overs were bowled by Astill, but this was not to deny a feat extremely rarely performed in the 1930s or since. T.E.R.Cook and H.W.Parks were threatening to make an important stand in the first innings when he put himself on and ensnared Cook: mission accomplished, he promptly took himself off. An even greater triumph came two weeks later against Lancashire. Having scored a faultless and undefeated 44 and taken two cheap wickets to give his county a lead of 133, he declared to leave the reigning champions, with a batting strength still formidable despite the absence of Ernest Tyldesley, to make 203 in 135 minutes: they were all out for 73 in 75. The Leicester Mercury gloated: It must be said of Ewart Astill that he handled the onerous task of captaincy with the wisdom worthy of the old campaigner. His declaration was psychological, and his saving of Geary for the coup de grace – George did not bat in the second innings – was a tactical move of the first importance. Geary took six for 34 to complete the victory. The next game being with Oxford University, Dempster of course took over, but rain brought a premature end to a game played on a sticky wicket. Astill ‘soared to great heights’, but his statistically best performance of the season, three for 31 and five for 16, meant little in an encounter marked by ‘the almost incredibly rustic puerility of most of the batting’. 264 Returning to serious cricket at Stourbridge, Astill distinguished himself in a victorious and low-scoring game, including the top-scorer (Walters with 46) among his three cheap wickets and himself hitting cleanly to make 45, eleven more than any of his colleagues could manage. After a completely rain-wrecked match at Gloucester, in which Astill was top scorer with 30, Smith and Geary bowled unchanged to destroy for 85 and 79 the lowly ‘Cobblers’, who lost 16 of their 24 matches. 265 A run of generally poor results followed, personally notable for Astill only by 36, the second highest innings for his side, in a successful attempt to achieve 264 The Cricketer , 8 June 1935, p 168. 265 According to CricketArchive Astill was captain in the victory over Northamptonshire, Sharp in the directly following loss to Glamorgan; but Sharp played in both matches and according to some reports was captain on both occasions. It would be strange if the county committee had made the professional Astill captain over Sharp (and then shown their appreciation for a convincing victory, in which Sharp was run out for 13 in his only innings, by turning to the amateur for the next match before his professional interests forced them to return to Astill for the remainder of the Championship season).