Lives in Cricket No 42 - Frank and George Mann

65 Chapter Eleven The Title Race Turns Nasty: 1924 Only one amateur was given a trial debut by Middlesex in 1924 but Lord Dunglass 31 made little impression against Oxford University in the first match of the season and he was not called upon again that year. However, Middlesex were in no need of new faces that summer as the experienced players were in great form. The first three Championshipmatches were won, thanks to some outstanding bowling from Hearne who was fully recovered from his injury received the previous season and enjoyed match figures of ten for 105 against Hampshire and eleven for 74 against Gloucestershire. These wins were followed by a draw with Lancashire and then Hearne and Hendren joined Frank for a match at Lord’s between MCC and the South African tourists. Frank had been asked to lead a team which contained several candidates for the England captaincy in the forthcoming Test series with South Africa, including Fender, Chapman, Douglas, Gilligan and Frank himself. Much as he would have enjoyed another series, it had been made clear by the selectors, who had now been joined by the Lancashire captain Jack Sharp, that whoever was chosen that summer would be expected to lead the MCC tour of Australia in the winter that followed. Another six months break from his brewery responsibilities could probably be covered but this time he would be travelling without Enid and engaged in a much more serious Test match series under enormous pressure to regain the Ashes. So it was with much regret that Frank withdrew from consideration and the selectors asked Gilligan to captain England against The Rest in the Test Trial which immediately followed the match at Lord’s. With that responsibility removed, Frank was in a relaxed mood when Yorkshire, the defending champions, arrived at Lord’s for the next Middlesex match with both teams losing key players to the Test trial. Yorkshire were bowled out on the first day for 192 and Middlesex declared at the end of the second day at 465 for eight, after Dales and Lee had put on 173 for the first wicket and Frank and Stevens had added another 151 for the fifth wicket in 95 minutes. Frank’s 79 included four huge sixes off Rhodes, the first two landing on top of the pavilion within twelve feet of one another, ‘one a ballooner’ and the other ‘a skimmer’. According to E.W.Swanton, writing in the Daily Telegraph in 1957: The first woke up an old member as it hit the stonework close to his head. He had hardly got off to sleep again when an almost identical stroke crashed against the stonework the other side of his head. This, 31 The courtesy title of Alexander Frederick Douglas-Home, the eldest son of the twelfth Earl of Home, who in two matches for Middlesex in 1924 and 1925, scored 23 runs at 7.66, took four wickets at 20.25, and took no catches. He was later United Kingdom prime minister from October 1963 to October 1964.