Lives in Cricket No 36 - WE Astill

153 The Captain after a woeful first innings, in the match in which Astill made his final first-class runs, 15, on his home ground of Aylestone Road before being bowled by H.T.F.Buse, and took his very last wicket in the Championship when he had the century-maker Harold Gimblett caught by Haydon Smith. Later, in August, in his very last match at this level and captaining perhaps the youngest-ever Leicestershire side, he failed to add to his tally of victims and, after being left undefeated with six runs to his credit in the first innings, bowed out of Championship cricket, bowled Jim Bailey for nought. Fittingly, however, the match was at Southampton, 32 years and 357 days since he had first stepped forth on that very ground to represent his native county. The epitaph to his long career had perhaps been written a decade and a half before: If you can bowl, although it’s not your wicket, And being hit for six you don’t give way, But pitch ’em up, and, though you’re laughed at, stick it, You’ll get them caught before the end of play! If you can bear to see those catches put down Slip through their fingers and away for four, Run to the crease and bowl another good one, Don’t think what happened to the one before. Your name is honoured, and you will have won it, For – which is everything – you’ve Played the Game! 273 273 R.Ewing, The Cricketer Annual, 1923-24 , p 80. This and the fourth stanza on modesty and unselfishness are the most applicable stanzas, although the first (on batting) and the third (on captaincy) have considerable relevance to Astill.