Lives in Cricket No 36 - WE Astill

65 the strokes and when the adventurous mood is with him his progress is especially good to see. 123 As a lad among men Astill initially fielded away from the wickets, often at mid off or in the covers but also further out including third man, in the expectation that he would have more energy for running around than his colleagues. And he did his enthusiastic best with fair competence, saving boundaries, cutting off runs, taking some smart catches and occasionally running out a batsman with an accurate throw. One report from 1910 reads: ‘Brilliantly Astill intercepts the ball, stretching out a long right arm, which seemed to extend itself indefinitely. He shied the wicket down.’ His judgement too was sound, as indicated by a reporter’s comment in a game against Hampshire when Astill let off Mead by throwing to the wrong end: ‘The incident is worth noting if only for the fact that it is probably the first time Astill has failed to size up the full possibilities of the situation’. This was in his 59th match in first-class cricket. Fairly soon, however, it was realized that with his fast reactions and not so speedy legs and his ability to produce ‘brilliant sideway movements’ 124 he would, like his later pupil Cowdrey, be more effective close in; thus he was to be found increasingly at gully, in the slips and at short leg, the last position in particular calling for not only safe hands and a quick eye but also a keen sense of anticipation of the batsman’s intentions. Amongst descriptions of catches we find, from the game against the Australians in 1909, ‘Ransford jumped out to King and performed the feat that a golfer would call slicing his drive. Even then he would have escaped but for a brilliant effort on which we must compliment Astill, who took the ball one-handed as it was falling away from him.’ And again, in catching Payton of Nottinghamshire at Leicester three years later, ‘the ball seemed to be going wide and high past the right hand, but Astill jumped for it and succeeded in holding it one-handed’. Off his own bowling he also held onto full-bloodied drives and could move and bend fast to take one- handed catches low to the ground, and some of his stops of straight drives were characterized as ‘miraculous’. Yet he dropped too many catches. The Times of 1910 125 observed: Catches will always be missed, but it is probably true that more are missed than used to be; and the present-day cricketers are not so much to blame for this as appears at first sight. To hold catches the fieldsman must be on the alert, and to be on the alert when he has been fielding the whole day, which he often has to nowadays, is not easy, apart from fatigue. Forty years ago the average length of an innings was not more than three or four hours; and this makes a lot of difference. True as this is, Astill still dropped too many. In 1910 the Leicester Mercury considered him ‘a shade too unreliable to be a perfect slip as yet’, but when lamenting the generally poor fielding of the side two years later found some exculpation: ‘Astill, at second slip, [is] often at fault. In saying this 123 Leicester Sports Mercury , 4 June 1927. 124 Observation of Philip Snow. 125 On 15 August. The Batsman and Fielder