Lives in Cricket No 44 - LCH Palairet

started to play in his old form, one hit from Bill Fairservice going over the sightscreen. However as he gained momentum the side lost wickets. When the last man John Harcombe came to the wicket Lionel was on 85. Trying to force the game, Lionel was stumped for 91. His innings had lasted two hours and 25 minutes. After Somerset closed on 231, Kent ran up 539 and went on to win by an innings. Lionel made 20 second time round. He played one more game against Warwickshire, but made only nine in a drawn game. On the pitch Somerset had a very poor season. With Northamptonshire admitted to the County Championship there were now 16 clubs. Somerset finished fifteenth with only one win and ten losses. In addition, the club made a loss of £454 (£45,000 in 2016 money); had it not been for the Australian match it would have been over £1,400 (£140,000 in 2016). As a result, the guarantors agreed to contribute £3 each; this would raise £420 and the balance would be made up of fund-raising. Sam Woods clearly had had enough and wanted to resign, but at the AGM was persuaded to carry on for another year. With no new talent on the horizon and many key players missing or losing form, the outlook did not look good. The Wells Journal in April 1906 was very pessimistic before Somerset’s campaign; they did however state Lionel would be back as a regular. Sadly he only was to play once. It was clear that Lionel was concentrating on settling in to his new job. His first recorded cricket that year was on July 5 as he made a duck playing for Major DF Bowles’ eleven against the Devon Regiment. A fortnight later he was in a car crash when his vehicle collided with a motorcycle; happily no one was hurt. Local press reports do not give any indication how it happened. He played two other minor matches without any notable score, before he turned out for his only game that season for Somerset. The opponents were Yorkshire at Bath. The match was won by Yorkshire by 389 runs. George Hirst, who was to take 200 wickets and score 2,000 runs in the season (the only player ever to do this), had a fine match, with a century in each innings and taking eleven wickets. Lionel was actually captain as Woods was absent, having picked up a strain. Lionel top scored for Somerset Captain of Somerset, and the Earl of Devon 96