Lives in Cricket No 44 - LCH Palairet

at Oxford his side failed to win a game and with the bat he never showed any consistency; he scored 871 runs at 26.39 without a century. He rarely was called upon to bowl. Despite this he was chosen by Wisden as one of the five cricketers of the year, the others being Hewett, AE Stoddart and SW Scott (Middlesex) and WW Read (Surrey). All the players chosen were batsman. Going on statistics Lionel certainly did not deserve it for his efforts on the field during the season. However the faith placed in his abilities were not misplaced; he would show to in time to be at the front rank of amateur batsmen in the country for a number of years. With the season over Lionel continued to play football; he played for Oxford Cygnets. This move caused the press to comment on him moving from the Dorchester club, however by Christmas Lionel had moved back to play for Bath. In November he attended a meeting at Taunton. The Somerset cricket club committee agreed that Sam Woods would be the new captain for 1894. He would stay as captain until 1906, a true character, who initially was a fine fast bowler but as his powers diminished he became a capable hard-hitting batsman, very popular with the public and his team. In December, Lionel returned to Oxford to receive his BA honours in Arts, then on Christmas Day he turned out to play county football for Somerset versus Gloucestershire at Midsomer Norton. With nearly 2,000 in attendance the result was a 2-2 draw with Lionel scoring the first goal. As 1894 started Lionel was elected onto the Taunton Cricket Club committee (Taunton Cricket Club shared the ground with the county team) and he also announced that he was to marry on July 5. With his life rapidly changing this would be the last season he would play regular football. University and plenty of sport 42