Lives in Cricket No 44 - LCH Palairet

living, which he did well, as he enjoyed a comfortable lifestyle; he liked the nice things in life, he was an early owner of a car and enjoyed bicycle riding. It was though as a cricketer he will be remembered, as a batsman of class and style. To this end I have managed to look into detail at all his innings, gathering a good picture of him at the wicket, as a bowler, a fielder and even an occasional part time wicket- keeper, and more importantly the legacy he left at Somerset as a fine and great player. His stance at the wicket was tall, the shots he played seemed to be made with little effort, but with maximum power being achieved. He was mainly a front foot player and was generally noted for being successful only on good wickets, and finding a difficult wicket hard to adjust to. However, there are many instances of him holding an innings together when others could do little, so this statement I think is not quite correct. His most favoured shot seems to have been the drive; he could drive with immense power, and although many innings are littered with comments of ‘clean beautiful driving along the turf’, there are many others which state ‘huge big drives’ into the crowd or the outfield. A number of his innings ended with a big drive causing his downfall, often on the boundary. He was good at the drive on either side of the wicket. Another popular shot was the cut; he did this with power and good placement and often chose the right ball to achieve maximum result. His defence was described as very sound with a flawless technique; above all, his innings were always full of grace and poise and with the minimum of effort. He also scored his runs at a good pace, often getting after the bowling from the first over. He shared in numerous fast partnerships. He got on well with Sam Woods, his captain for most of his career, as they had little time for draws and slow cricket and they always played positively. Sadly in the Somerset teams the burden was on too few. It was though for Somerset that he had his best days and set some impressive records that stood for many decades. In his batting career he was dismissed 469 times: His cricketing legacy 121