Lives in Cricket No 36 - WE Astill

69 The First ‘Doubles’ associated with such a side as Middlesex or Surrey’. The Cricketer hardly did him justice in proclaiming that ‘he undoubtedly ranks as one of the four or five best all-round players in the country’. 130 As a bowler he was indefatigable, opening the attack in virtually every innings, usually with the fast bowler Benskin, and delivering 1,226.3 overs, 149.2 more than his two closest rivals, King and Benskin, combined. On 18 occasions he bowled between 30 and 52 overs in an innings, his most impressive display of stamina being in the match at Northampton where over the two innings he bowled 97 overs in taking nine for 150. Rarely did he deliver a bad ball despite his employment of seemingly endless variations, and although he was prepared to buy wickets when circumstances demanded and was occasionally mastered on flat wickets in a dry summer, he was often very economical, comments such as ‘in his first nine overs he leaked only two singles’ (at Northampton) being common. References to his bowling during the season are sprinkled with words such as ‘wonderful’, ‘excellent’, ‘clever’, ‘accurate’, ‘deadly’ and ‘brilliant’. Summing up his success halfway through the season, ‘Reynard’ wrote: Astill’s natural gifts as a bowler were quickly and early developed, and there can be no question that his zeal led him to experiment very considerably with a variety of styles. Possibly for a time this limited his means of natural success, though he has since benefited from his school of experience, and is now a matured bowler in the sense that he knows what to exploit and what to discard. His success last year and this has been emphatic and his effectiveness on all sorts of wickets is the best testimony to his all-round equipment of skill. 131 An even greater amelioration was in his batting. Beginning at No.7 in the first two matches, he was rapidly promoted and appeared during the season in every position from one to seven. Given his final average of only 27 (perhaps worth around 40 in 2013), descriptions in the Mercury and Sports Mercury perhaps erred on the side of eulogy, but we are told that his defence was at times ‘resolute’, ‘correct’, ‘assured’, ‘thorough’, ‘perfectly sound’ and ‘quite without fault’ and that he ‘never appeared in any difficulty’. He preferred, however, opportunities to play more ‘aggressively’, ‘attractively’ and even ‘breezily’, ‘exploiting strokes all round the wicket’. Most often mentioned are cuts, leg-side play and ‘hearty’ drives made ‘in capital style’ or ‘with rare abandon’. ‘Confidence’ and ‘enterprise’ are words often employed. The season opened with overwhelming defeat at the hands of Warwick Armstrong’s Australians before a huge and enthusiastic crowd at Aylestone Road. Astill made an inauspicious beginning, being caught behind off the fearsome McDonald for a duck and taking the single wicket of Bardsley for 134 runs, although his ‘analysis did him scant justice’. In the second innings, however, he gave indication of what was to come in scoring 32, his county’s second-highest innings, in a gritty partnership with his 130 Winter Annual, 1921/22 , p 66. 131 Leicester Sports Mercury, 23 July 1921.