Lives in Cricket No 36 - WE Astill

76 After a moderate start in bowling and a poor one in batting in the early matches he waited until the end of May to show much success in the latter sphere when in wintry conditions Leicestershire travelled to Old Trafford and the pitch behaved at its worst for their two innings. First time round Astill entered at No.3 after opener Fowke had been dismissed for nought with the score at two. He then proceeded to carry his bat for 60 out of a further 93, no other batsman managing to reach double figures. It was a gritty innings and despite the wintry conditions he ‘warm[ed] to his work so well that he took his sweater off’. Yet in 165 minutes he reached the boundary only twice, once by means of a hit over the sight-screen that fell on the head of a youngster, fortunately without doing serious harm. Having conceded a lead of 165 Leicestershire were then dismissed again in ‘atrocious conditions’ for a mere 73, Astill alone providing resistance with 23, although he was joined in double figures this time by Rudd with 13. In mid June his batting and bowling helped his side to win at Portsmouth against a Hampshire side riding high in the Championship, his dismissal of the dangerous Bowell, Mead and Tennyson in the second innings being crucial. Then in the following encounter he bowled unchanged with Benskin through Kent’s first innings of 73 at Leicester to give his friend Jack King the pleasure of victory in his second benefit match against a team to whom they had so often lost heavily. Although he could not know it at the time, he had twice bowled out a future coach of his county, Bill Ashdown, for the negligible scores of one and six, having just over a week earlier bowled out twice for low scores Walter Hammond, destined to be a scourge of his county for many a year. Shortly after he put on 101 with C.J.B.Wood in an hour against Warwickshire at Leicester, his own contribution blossoming into 71 in 75 minutes with ‘manful’ drives, but rain stretched this innings over all three days and so inevitably precluded any result in the match. Thus encouraged, however, Astill completed the third century of his career and first in his native county, a ‘brilliant’ and faultless innings of 106 against Hampshire, with 17 boundaries in which he ‘exploited front-of-the-wicket methods in his happiest style’. Yet he did not make the headlines, for King, the oldest man regularly playing first-class cricket, recorded 205. 143 The third-wicket partnership between the two realised 215. Astill missed the next match for his county since he was selected, for the first time, to partake in a Gentlemen v Players match. He did not disgrace himself by any means in the august company at The Oval, scoring a respectable 37 and opening the attack to take five wickets in all, his bowling of Percy Chapman in the second innings being signalled by Wisden as a great blow to the Gentlemen 144 who lost with but ten minutes to go. He returned to county colours to score a resolute 62 against the excellent fast bowling of the visiting West Indies, but then encountered a relatively quiet period enlivened by Leicestershire’s week-long tour of Scotland during 143 Strangely this was another instance for Leicestershire this season of the rare feat of a personal Championship innings stretching over all three days. 144 He also caught and bowled top-scorer Tennyson. The First ‘Doubles’