Lives in Cricket No 36 - WE Astill

147 The Captain Langridge and then ‘caused a great deal of trouble to the later batsmen’ with varied spin and pace to take six for 51 in their final total of 199. Needing only 173 to win, Leicestershire were riding comfortably at 94 for one, but then collapsed until Astill joined a masterful Armstrong to see his side through and equal their record number of ten victories in 1921. Were they helped by their new mascot, ‘a miniature lucky black cat’ which Astill ceremoniously received from the ‘Old Leicester Boys now living in Eastbourne’? 266 Two games now remained. Although he made an undefeated 33 in the second innings against Gloucestershire, more than any of his fellow batsmen in the entire match, Hammond’s 252 gave the visitors overwhelming superiority. The cricketing union of Leicestershire and neighbouring Rutland having recently been completed, the final match of the season was played in the latter, serendipitously at Oakham School where A.P.F.Chapman, the visiting Kent captain, had so distinguished himself as a schoolboy. Astill had Fagg caught at the wicket in his first over and then let Smith and Geary in bowling and Berry and others in batting complete a surprisingly easy conquest of their powerful opponents. Astill’s personal figures for the season were modest. He did not over- bowl himself, often indeed giving preference to his fellow-spinner, the left-handed Marlow. Yet his ‘insidious slows’ ensnared 59 victims at an average expense of 22.50 each, aided by the new lbw law allowing for 266 The Leicester Mercury (17 August) adds that it was similar to those presented to the Wightman Cup tennis team and a British athletic team going to South Africa, and (21 August) that it was expected to ‘find an honourable place in the souvenir collection at Aylestone Road’. Astill as captain sits alongside the visiting Kent captain, A.P.F.Chapman, in this joint team picture at Doncaster Close, Oakham School, for the final game of the season in 1935. Chapman had excelled as a schoolboy cricketer at Oakham and he appears to be reflecting on those achievements as the picture is being taken.