Lives in Cricket No 42 - Frank and George Mann

41 A New Captain for Middlesex century and century from Lee, and centuries from Bruce, Crutchley, Haig, Hearne and Mann, and the bowlers Durston and Haig each taking over 50 wickets. The run of victories only came to an end with a draw at Lord’s against Lancashire and even in this match Hendren had added another century to his collection. 22 Middlesex were clear favourites to win the title and on June 24 the table showed them clear at the top with 88.88% and followed by Kent at 77.77%. Highlights from the first eight matches included Durston’s match figures of ten for 129 against Hampshire, and a first-wicket stand of 231 against Nottinghamshire at Lord’s between Crutchley, who made 145, and Lee who went on to reach 243. In this match Mann declared at 612 for eight after ‘he punished the worn-out bowling in tremendous style’ adding 53 of his own runs in nineteen minutes from twenty balls including four sixes, the first one into the pavilion. Mann’s own century had come earlier in the first game against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge in 165 minutes and included 15 fours and two sixes. And to everyone’s relief, Hearne announced his return to full fitness with 170 in five hours against Essex in the last match before the draw with Lancashire. But there had been one disappointing result outside the Championship race when the touring Australians under the captaincy of Warwick Armstrong came to Lord’s at the beginning of June and in a low-scoring match needed only two days to beat Middlesex by eight wickets. 23 There had been rumours circulating that Frank Mann was a contender to take over the England captaincy after the debacle under Douglas in Australia the previous winter, and he was invited to attend a dinner in honour of the Australian tourists at the House of Commons during the match at Lord’s. Fortunately for Frank, the selectors stuck with Douglas for the first two Tests, before turning to Lionel Tennyson for the remainder of the Ashes series won 3-0 by Australia. After the draw with Lancashire at home, Middlesex went straight back to their winning ways by going up to Old Trafford and beating them by 172 runs, thanks to unbeaten centuries from Hearne (146) in the first innings and Hendren (107) in the second. Moving down to Southampton, Middlesex completed the double over Hampshire after another century from Frank Mann who scored 101 out of a first innings total of 236, including eight fours and five sixes, and the match was wrapped up by Durston with figures of twelve for 136. This was followed by the first defeat of the season when Surrey beat them by 19 runs at The Oval. Two more wins, against Essex and Sussex, kept them on top of the table. After the win at Hove things started to go downhill for Middlesex and they lost to Kent at Canterbury and could only draw with Yorkshire and 22 This run of 17 successive Championship wins, nine in 1920, and eight in 1921, has never been exceeded. 23 There had, though, been other punctuations to the Middlesex run of Championship match wins. These were losses to the Rest of England in the ‘Champion County’ match at the end of 1920, and oddly, against Oxford University at the start of the 1921 season.