Lives in Cricket No 36 - WE Astill

28 but ‘the youngster scored a single to leg, and the field gathered around him as he faced East. A leg-bye was stolen and the great finish was won by a wicket amidst delirious delight … ’ Astill had again held his nerve when it mattered most. He was second highest scorer with 24 not out to opener Knight’s 74 at Southampton, and in scoring 18 not out in the ninth-wicket partnership of 56 in half an hour at Blackpool with V.F.S.Crawford that almost brought victory, 52 he ‘aroused applause for thrice turning Harry to leg for four in pretty style. This youngster can make runs at a pinch, and this was a tight corner.’ His captain must have seen some promise in the lad, for he was given the duty of nightwatchman at the Maidstone festival where ‘his mission [was] to save a more valuable wicket … when Fielder was thundering down his fastest ball in fading light’, a mission that he successfully accomplished, as he did when the experiment was repeated two matches later at Hull where his eight runs made him third equal top scorer against a rampant Hirst. Leicestershire’s failure to win more than four matches dropped them down two places to thirteenth in the Championship table for 1908. This was hardly Astill’s fault, for at the still tender age of 20 he both topped the averages and took the highest of wickets for his county − 84 against other counties at 20.86. Indeed, he would probably have taken 100 wickets in all first-class matches, had Leicestershire’s catching been only moderate, but, as ‘Reynard’ commented at the end of the season, ‘Slipshod, lackadaisical work has been combined with an inaccuracy and wildness by which the foe benefited, the bowlers were at once discouraged, handicapped, and impaired, while, as it inevitably will, the spirit of the team suffered and degenerated’. On 9 May the local newspaper trumpeted that ‘The first county match ever begun on a Saturday opened on the Aylestone-road Ground this morning. 53 Warwickshire collaborated with Leicestershire in the experiment, and a mere sprinkling of spectators was present when the game commenced’. The sky was dull and overcast, ‘the general outlook was forbidding, and the wicket palpably and painfully slow.’ Notwithstanding, as the day progressed the crowd grew to around 6,000 and the experiment, in time to become a standard feature of the county season, proved a financial success. For Astill too it was a success: after his county had scored 173 he and Odell bowled unchanged to dismiss their opponents for a mere 54 with a highest score of nine from the No.11 batsman, Astill having the lion’s share of the wickets with seven for 23; and there was still time for Leicestershire’s opener, Wood, to be dismissed for a second time before the close of play. In his delight at having broken his own personal record for best bowling performance in an innings, on the Monday Astill recorded his highest score hitherto, reaching 27 in a last-wicket partnership with his captain before being stumped. As a crowning bonus the home county 52 Lancashire won by two wickets in a low-scoring match. 53 It is strange that this was so late in coming, since the Factory Act, which freed many workers from their employment at 2.00 pm, had been passed as many as 58 years previously in 1850. The Prodigy