Lives in Cricket No 44 - LCH Palairet

and Nottinghamshire. Somerset’s return game with Yorkshire at Taunton started on August 25. Electing to bat and starting their innings in good weather, Yorkshire batted most of the day compiling a good score of 299. With less than 40 minutes to the close Hewett and Lionel opened and immediately went after the bowling; by the close they had 78 on the board. Lionel had been missed at the wicket when 28 and this drop would be severely punished. The second day witnessed some incredible batting. The pair put up the century stand in 65 minutes; Hewett reached his century in two hours; and shortly afterwards 200 went up and Lionel’s hundred was attained 20 minutes later. The scoring rate actually increased as the third century took only an hour. Eventually at 3pm, Hewett was bowled by Peel for 201. The pair had added 346 runs scoring at 100 runs per hour. The partnership broke the world record for any wicket at the time, beating Dr WG Grace and BB Cooper’s stand of 283 set in 1868. This partnership is still the Somerset record for the first wicket. Lionel was eventually out at 372, having batted three hours and 35 minutes and hitting one six and 19 fours. Somerset continued to pile up runs, Walter Hedley made 102 as the side was all out for 592 just before the close. Sadly, the last day was washed out robbing the county of probable victory, but the partnership was the talking point for the press for months to come. The bad weather continued as Somerset’s last two games were virtually washed out. This concluded the season for Somerset, who finished third in the Championship. They would not equal this position again until 1958, and would not beat this until 2001 when they finished second. Somerset to 2015 have not won the Championship though they have been runners-up three times. The cricket season was not quite finished for Lionel; he was selected in a scratch match for West of England versus East of England at Portsmouth. This time he was on the winning side, making useful scores of 33 and 25 and his team won by 48 runs. Sam Woods took 13 for 109. Lionel’s final game of the season was his third appearance for the Gentlemen against the Players, at Hastings. Starting on September 12 the match was drawn; having made the Players follow on the Gentlemen were glad to come University and plenty of sport 35