Lives in Cricket No 42 - Frank and George Mann

67 The Title Race Turns Nasty: 1924 it is said, convinced him that the assault was personal. He therefore picked up his hat and umbrellas and hurriedly made-off out − out of cricket history for ever. The third six was a low drive which just cleared one of the large ground- floor windows in the pavilion and the fourth hit the railings at the top of the pavilion. Of this shot, The Times commented: ‘If Mr Mann had hit the ball properly it would never have been seen again.’ 32 Yorkshire were all out for 121, suffering their first defeat in over a year and left Lord’s vowing to take revenge when Middlesex came to Sheffield in July. Rain reduced the next Middlesex game, at home to Nottinghamshire, to only 27 overs and there was no play possible in the first two days at Lord’s against Essex so no chance of a result. It wasn’t until their eighth home match of the season that Middlesex suffered their first defeat when they lost by 194 runs to Sussex after being all out for 41 in the second innings. They nearly lost at Old Trafford in their first away match of the year: only a stand of 116 for the fifth wicket between Frank, who made 60, and Hendren, who scored his first century of the season for the county with an unbeaten 104, enabled them to escape with a draw. On returning to Lord’s they lost a low-scoring match to Somerset by 37 runs but then put themselves back in the title race by beating Kent, Essex and Hampshire. Frank played a major role in the win at Canterbury with top scores in both innings, 83 out of 233 and 42 out of 134, supported by Durston with match figures of ten for 122. Frank had a short break from county cricket by leading the Gentlemen against the Players at The Oval before rejoining Middlesex and taking them north to play Yorkshire. The home side put Middlesex in to bat, hoping for an early breakthrough, but Dales and Stevens opened and put on 65 runs in the first half-hour, then Hendren hit 99 before an unfortunate run- out at 99, and Bruce with 88, carried them forward to a first-innings total of 358. Yorkshire replied with 334 and Middlesex, satisfied with taking the first-innings points from a drawn match, batted on through most of the final day to score 268, leaving Yorkshire only 18 overs. Frustrated by their inability to bowl Middlesex out, the Yorkshire players resorted to constant lbw appeals whenever and wherever the ball hit the pads, or for catches behind the wicket after the ball had beaten the bat, encouraged to do so by a noisy and hostile crowd. An angry Middlesex left Sheffield at the end of the game determined that they would refuse to play Yorkshire next season. The umpires, Harry Butt and Bill Reeves, reported Yorkshire’s behaviour, making special reference to Waddington, and the MCC set up an inquiry. Negotiations between the two counties continued behind the scenes in which Frank and Rockley Wilson took leading roles and they managed to resolve the differences, with the result that both sides agreed to play in the 1925 season as usual. There was more drama at Trent Bridge in their next game, where Nottinghamshire scored 462 and then forced Middlesex, who scored 253, 32 Gerald Brodribb reported that Rhodes was not amused by this hitting, dismissing it as ‘Nowt cricket but murder.’