Lives in Cricket No 45 - Brief Candles 2

110 (with future Test player N.C.Tufnell), but Alfred out-scored them all in his side’s second innings, his score of 42 - top score in a team total of 114 all out - comfortably exceeding the innings aggregate of the five Worcestershire players in the side. It was no surprise that when in May 1909 H.K.Foster was called upon (or volunteered) to put together a side to take on an eleven selected by H.D.G.Leveson Gower in a friendly match marking the official opening of the Hereford Racecourse ground, Alfred was one of those he chose. Amongst and against a bevy of county players, he did himself credit with a score of 19 in his only innings (joint third top score) as the two-day game ended in a draw. Foster selected sides to play matches - for the first time, first-class matches - against Oxford University in 1912 and again in 1913. As ever these were based around the contemporary Worcestershire side, though none of the three men who made their first-class debuts in one match or the other was local to the Worcester or Hereford area. It is unlikely that Alfred was ever considered for these matches. Would his chance ever come? In 1919 Worcestershire did not compete in the County Championship, but they played six matches now recognised as first-class against other sides in the championship. To further the recovery of cricket in the county, H.K.Foster also arranged to put together sides to play home and away matches against the Worcestershire eleven. Performances in these matches were recorded in the seasonal averages in Wisden 1920, and largely on that basis they have come to be recognised as first-class games. Unsurprisingly, Worcestershire were not a strong side in 1919, and Foster picked his elevens accordingly. Seven of his eleven in the first match at Hereford were making their first-class debuts when the game began on 14 July, and virtually all were local to the area. They included Alfred’s nephew, Chase Meredith, the son of Alfred’s sister Laura (the forename Chase was used in various branches of the family over a few generations). Born in 1881, he had far less of a cricketing pedigree than Alfred, only appearing in the pages of Cricket in 1909 and 1910 when he played nine innings, usually as an opener for the Gentlemen of Shropshire in matches against the Gentlemen of various other nearby counties. Six of those nine innings were of single figures, another was of ten, and the other two were scores of 37 against Denbighshire in June 1909, and 38 against Worcestershire in July 1910. Quite what he had done to earn selection for Foster’s eleven in 1919 is unclear, but a score of 34 in his side’s first innings surely justified that selection, even though being bowled by the wicketkeeper for a single in the second innings may have introduced new doubts. Immediately following this game, Foster had arranged a match against much stronger opposition: the touring Australian Imperial Forces eleven. Accordingly he strengthened his side by bringing in four of those who had played for Worcestershire in the game at Hereford, along with Cornwall Minor Counties player William Tresawna, who had also played for the Herefordshire club that season. Chase Meredith was one of the five players dropped from Foster’s side for this match. Despite the scorecard showing them to be clearly second best, Foster’s eleven were able to draw this The oldest of them all