Lives in Cricket No 36 - WE Astill

170 His Place in Leicestershire’s Annals Whenever the bowler Astill was handed the ball, a frisson of excitement animated the crowd. This is regularly engendered by an ultra-fast bowler, like Leicestershire’s Alec Skelding or the West Indians of the 1970s and 1980s; but it is much rarer from a spin-bowler. Shane Warne could do it, so could Muttiah Muralitharan, but for Leicestershire only Tony Lock, in his brief spell with the club, the now sadly almost-forgotten Jack Walsh, and Ewart Astill. On a pitch to his liking there was the riveting spectacle of expert batsmen reduced to the ranks of bemused rabbits, on normal pitches the fascination of an equal duel between cunning bowler and experienced batsman, on shirt-fronts the thrill of anticipation as he went through his great repertoire of spin and swerve and the occasional unexpected, outrageous delivery. 300 Even more important was Ewart Astill the man. All knew him as a person of thorough honesty, decency, kindness, cheerfulness, determination and loyalty. Patsy Hendren considered him ‘a man’s man, … perhaps the most popular professional among professionals’. 301 To the Leicestershire faithful he was the youngster of enormous promise and then the evergreen post-war veteran, who even more than his colleague George Geary shouldered the burden of their county’s bowling, and often their batting too, with a smiling chivalry and unwearied dedication that embedded him deep in their affections. Alan Gibson once noted that ‘Roy Webber, in his list of county captains, is overcome by Leicestershire in 1932, and set down simply that the captaincy “was shared between six amateurs”’; to which Gibson added ‘I do not suppose that Geary and Astill noticed who happened to be the captain of the day. They just bowled and batted, on and on.’ 302 His own captaincy was one of the most tactically aware and possibly the happiest ever enjoyed by Leicestershire, and in the national sphere it has its place in history as the first regular such appointment held by a professional in the ‘official’ County Championship. How can he best be summed up? Overall Fred Root called him ‘the most versatile cricketer’ he had ever known; on a higher plane David Frith’s opinion was that ‘Of the stalwarts who served their countries for almost a lifetime Ewart Astill of Leicestershire has an exalted place’; 303 but for Leicestershire supporters he was simply the best-loved of all their heroes. 300 Spectators on 99 first-class grounds (74 in England) were able to witness his feats with bat or ball. 301 My Book of Cricket and Cricketers , p 122. 302 The Cricketer , March, 1981, p 19. 303 The Slow Men , p 99.