Lives in Cricket No 36 - WE Astill

82 Kilner and Jupp. He had now performed the feat in five successive seasons. The home season in 1925 opened with a devastating conquest of Glamorgan. The game began on time thanks to Leicestershire taking advantage of their own proposal to cover the whole pitch for 24 hours prior to the scheduled start; 151 but it was still treacherous, although remarkably wicketkeeper Sidwell did not concede a single bye. 152 The Welshmen were sent ignominiously back to the pavilion twice for fewer than 100 runs and the match was over on the second morning after just six and a half hours’ play, Leicestershire’s single innings of 184 being sufficient to bring victory by an innings and 88 runs. For the second time in their careers Astill and Geary bowled unchanged throughout the match, Geary (11 for 61) with the more wickets and Astill (eight for 35), ‘varying his pace and flight cleverly’, with the better average. Astill then had a good match at Oxford, taking seven wickets in all, including his county colleague C.H.Taylor, and being top-scorer in both innings with 38 and 29, but he could not prevent a Dark Blues’ victory. Similarly against Kent his 49 when all were floundering around him (his ten colleagues mustered but 46) failed in its goal. In this innings, he was ‘a model of discretion’, countering the slow bowling of Woolley and ‘Tich’ Freeman with confidence and even managing to knock the former out of the attack. A few games later he suffered sprains to his shoulder which seriously hampered his bowling as he was hit for 81 by the Northamptonshire batsmen in only 16 overs, although his spell of three for seven in under four overs removed the middle order and enabled his side to win. Perhaps Surrey, victors by only two wickets at Leicester, would have succumbed had Astill been able to bowl. As it was he was top-scorer of the match with 89 on ‘a pitch from which the ball came along at varying heights and sometimes shot’ ( Wisden ) as he and Geary put on 107 for 151 On 16 May the Leicester Sports Mercury published a cartoon celebrating Leicestershire as ‘now being the recognized home of cricket inventions’. 152 This feat had not been accomplished previously in Championship cricket since Stone’s effort for Hampshire v Gloucestershire in 1913. The First ‘Doubles’ Astill walking out to bat with another Leicestershire legend, Les Berry, who was 17 years his junior.