Lives in Cricket No 36 - WE Astill

26 Astill’s accelerated cricketing education came in the next match, the first of the South Africans’ tour. Since his six wickets for 77 in the two innings included Nos.2, 3, 4, and 5 he was continuing to excel against the top order. The Times reporter described Hathorn as playing ‘a very correct innings until he was obviously defeated in the flight of the ball from the young bowler Astill, which he skied to third man’. Flight alone, however, was not his sole weapon, for, as the local reporter relates, when Sherwell tried to drive him, ‘the spin of the leather was too great and the outcome was a high chance to point’. That provided the new captain, Sir Arthur Hazlerigg with his first catch in first-class cricket, a feat soon equalled by the youngster when he held Faulkner off Odell at mid on. Flight and spin did not, however, impair Astill’s accuracy and ability to inhibit free scoring for in one spell he conceded but 14 runs in 9 overs. Although he was on the losing side for the fifth time in five first-class matches in the low-scoring return against Nottinghamshire, he far from disgraced himself in bowling tightly and skilfully to take four for 46 in helping to restrict the much stronger visitors to a first innings lead of three. But on his baptism at Lord’s he experienced for the first time aggressive batsmen on a fast wicket, MCC scoring at a rate of ‘between ninety and a hundred runs an hour’, 49 causing The Times reporter to deplore the county’s bowling which, though not lacking in variety, had no hopeful outlook. Astill took no wicket, but could be moderately pleased that in these circumstances he managed four maidens when conceding 59 runs off 16 overs. A change in the weather gave Jayes and Odell the opportunity to dismiss the home side in the second innings for 69 to leave Leicestershire to score 202 to win. When Astill walked out last man to join his captain, ten were still required, and the pair scored nine by ‘plucky batting’, 50 the youngster twice deliberately hitting the ball over the heads of the close fielders. So, for the first time, he experienced a tense finish in which he held his nerve, being the only batsman to remain unvanquished. This achievement doubtless gave him needed confidence for the following game at Leicester when, in partnership with his uncle Jayes, he helped to give his county a slender lead of three over Surrey. After a delayed start on the last day (the first was a complete washout) Hayward and Hobbs scored 110 in about an hour, but after lunch Astill reigned supreme on an ‘utterly ruined and untrustworthy pitch’ until the might of Surrey was humbled for the addition of only 38 further runs and his own analysis had moved from nought for 34 to seven for 41 and his victims included Hayward and Hayes. The local paper gushed with hyperbole: Astill bowled superbly … The ball broke this way and that, bewildering every batsman and rendering them to state, like that of the mast in Margat’s story, “precarious and not all permanent”: the ball, in fact, danced about on the turf like a mad dervish, and lucky was the man who reached it with his bat … ‘Brief life was here their portion’ … in 23 balls Astill took five wickets, which is a performance that the 49 Wisden . 50 The Times . This was Leicestershire’s first tie, a result repeated only once, at Huddersfield six years after Astill’s death. The Prodigy