Lives in Cricket No 42 - Frank and George Mann

31 Warner and his ‘Sandbank’ strike a length so that the first wicket didn’t fall until there were 55 runs on the board. Then Seymour came in and struck a full toss from Stevens towards the mid-wicket boundary where Gunasekara, running from deep square leg, took a glorious catch. Kent kept Woolley back as three more wickets fell but with a half-hour’s play left he finally came to the wicket at 90 for five and was promptly bowled first ball. Rain ended play early with Kent needing another 29 runs to win. Needing some light relief Warner took his team to the theatre that evening to see the ‘Old Stagers’ where one of the well-known actresses, Mrs Charles Bartlett, who had been brought down from the West End to join the famous local amateur dramatic society for the week, delighted the audience with flirtatious praise for the Middlesex players by singing: O I think I could love you if like Hendren you could pull Or like Greville Stevens you could bowl, With Jack Hearne and Lee in Why, cricket’s worth seeing, And for Nigel Haig I’d gladly give my soul. She rounded off her compliments with a saucy reference to Warner: … and I lurk around every corner For a glimpse of Plum Warner, Oh, I’m sure I could love him if I tried. 17 And the drama continued the following morning. Kent added another nine runs before Hearne dismissed Troughton and Wood, and then Humphreys was run out so that last man Freeman came to the wicket with six runs needed to win. Hearne immediately bowled Freeman to make his innings figures eight for 26 in 17 overs and Middlesex had won by five runs. Warner was so delighted when the last wicket fell that he confessed to behaving ‘in a most unseemly manner, bounding in the air like a young kangaroo.’ Nevertheless, Kent kept their place at the top and Yorkshire jumped ahead of Surrey after drawing with Leicestershire, while Surrey lost to Nottinghamshire. The Kent percentage had fallen to 75.79 and the Middlesex figure had risen to 64.67, so the gap was narrowing. Starting on Saturday 7 August, Middlesex now took on Surrey at The Oval. Coming from defeat at the hands of Nottinghamshire, Surrey appeared to be in decline after a great start to the season. Middlesex, on the other hand, were on the rise and set about destroying their rivals in two days. Middlesex were 358 for eight at the end of the first day, thanks to a magnificent 178 from Hearne which put them in the driving seat. Despite some resistance from Jack Hobbs, Middlesex had won by an innings before the end of the second day. Hearne demonstrated his allround ability with a match analysis of nine for 101 from 27 overs. Meanwhile Yorkshire had beaten Worcestershire but couldn’t overhaul Kent who beat Gloucestershire, and Lancashire moved into third place after beating Nottinghamshire. The 17 Sadly our hero didn’t get a reference in this ditty. The Kentish Gazette reviewer described this ‘as a lilting little song … a pleasing diversion’ in which ‘allusion is made to several Kent and Middlesex cricketers’.