Lives in Cricket No 36 - WE Astill

167 Chapter Fifteen His Place in Leicestershire’s Annals Ewart Astill was the most prolific all-rounder ever to play for Leicestershire, scoring 19,879 runs, taking 2,131 wickets and holding 392 catches for the county. He thus very nearly became only the third player to attain the twin totals of 20,000 runs and 2,000 wickets for a county, an achievement still today the exclusive domain of Hirst and Rhodes for Yorkshire. Five times he accomplished the seasonal ‘double’ of 1,000 runs and 100 wickets for Leicestershire, missing out only very narrowly in four further years in each of which he reached the targets with the help of runs or wickets in representative or festival matches. In all his county’s history the ‘double’ has been done by only three other players, Walsh, Jackson and van Geloven, and just once by each. 291 In 17 seasons (16 in succession from 1920 to 1935 and also in 1937) he scored over 500 runs and took more than 50 wickets, far more frequently than his nearest rivals, King (12), Jackson (11), Geary (8) and Walsh (8). Though strangely never performing the ‘match-double’ of 100 runs and 10 wickets, he yet achieved the ‘poor man’s match-double’ of 50 runs and five wickets 48 times, in 18 instances scoring a half-century and registering a five-wicket innings. 292 In the 1938 annual of The Cricketer there appeared a lengthy and contentious article on all-round performances in a single match. 293 According to its author, G.H.Wood, Rhodes had over his career 145 such matches, Hirst 132, W.G.Grace (after 1872) 119, Woolley 104, J.W.Hearne 101, Douglas 96, Astill and Tate 87 each. Astill had 12 such matches in 1921 and ten the following year: only six players reached double figures in more than two separate years. So we may conclude that as an all-rounder Astill stood out not only for his own county but in county cricket as a whole. For Leicestershire Berry, Hallam, King and Wood alone scored more runs, and of these only Hallam and King were Leicestershire-born. Ten times he made 1,000 runs in a season, equal ninth most often. Although many players have scored more than his 13 centuries, only 13 have reached 50 on more than his 107 occasions. Berry alone played more innings, while only the two wicketkeepers Tolchard and Whiteside and fast bowler Spencer were left not out more often. At the time his 164* v Glamorgan and his 156* v Gloucestershire were the highest innings made against 291 King needed a representative match to complete his ‘double’ in 1912 . Jackson did have a few very near misses. 292 In all first-class cricket he achieved these feats 52 and 20 times respectively. 293 ‘The All-rounder in Cricket’, The Cricketer Winter Annual, 1938, pp 92-96 The complicated criteria for such a match are given on p 92. Seven subsequent issues of the magazine in 1939 contain expansion of the theme by its author and numerous adverse criticisms by others.