Lives in Cricket No 36 - WE Astill

74 Astill’s season was now half over. Would he complete the ‘double’? He had just over 704 runs, but had taken only 48 wickets and the weather was, rightly, believed to be unpromising for the foreseeable future. The answer was an emphatic affirmative. Although his batting dropped off somewhat with only three lowish fifties as innings of note to come, he took exactly twice as many wickets in the next fourteen matches as he had taken in the first with 12 five-wicket hauls. He began by taking six wickets to give his county a two-run first-innings lead over Warwickshire before rain spoiled the contest, and then dismissed five Hampshire batsmen to give Leicestershire a chance of victory, taken away again by rain, in the next match. An appalling rain-affected pitch at Ashby enabled C.W.L.Parker to take 11 for 66, but for once this did not win Gloucestershire the match for Astill almost equalled him statistically with 11 for 68 to give Leicestershire an exciting victory by two wickets early on the second day after, being set 37, they had dramatically fallen to eight runs for seven wickets. In the very next match he and Geary bowled unchanged throughout Warwickshire’s first innings on a slow wicket at Edgbaston (would bowlers ever be allowed today to bowl 37.2 overs unchanged?) to dismiss them for 133. Astill’s share was eight for 57, the best figures of his career hitherto. Despite, however, his valiant 30 (second-highest score) in Leicestershire’s second innings, he then had to bow the knee for after 194 balls his five for 80 were quite unsupported and the home side won comfortably enough by four wickets. To be on the losing side after taking 13 wickets is dispiriting, but he had little time to indulge in regrets for his mind was fully occupied, as he showed ‘infinite pains in setting his field’ in an unavailing marathon bowl of 39.5 overs for four wickets in front of the knowledgeable but unforgiving crowd of Bramall Lane. Having been partnered by Skelding and Shipman against Yorkshire and Northamptonshire he was again joined by Geary in the home match with Glamorgan; and once again they bowled through an innings unchanged as the visitors were dismissed for a paltry 51. They were not quite as successful second time round, but Leicestershire still won their last home match of the season by 228 runs with Astill taking another five wickets to give him ten wickets for 61 in total, including his hundredth of the season. The return fixture with Sussex at Hastings was a magnificent match: would that it, its weather and result could have been exchanged with that at Aylestone Road for Astill’s benefit! After a fairly even but somewhat low-scoring battle on the first day Sussex, thanks largely to Maurice Tate, obtained a seemingly decisive lead of 69 on the Monday, but Sharp, ably abetted by Astill with 37 (the third-highest score), ensured that Sussex were left with 177 to win. That they excitingly failed by just 22 was mainly due to Astill, whose five for 61 was achieved through good-length spinners enlivened by the swerve with which he bowled Cox. The visitors’ delight was tempered only by doubt over Cook’s dismissal, hit-wicket to Astill for nought. The Leicester Mercury’s report reads that the batsman played at the ball, which Sidwell missed but pushed forward again, the ball bouncing back off Cook’s legs on to the wicket. The official decision … was hit wicket, the umpire saying the batsman trod on the stumps, but from a broadside view of the incident this seemed hardly The First ‘Doubles’