Lives in Cricket No 45 - Brief Candles 2

13 So close matches in 1927. But a score of 49 against Hertfordshire in the opening match of the county’s 1928 season established his right to a place in the side, and he was to remain a fixture in the Bedfordshire XI for another 23 years, until the end of the 1951 season. Bedfordshire between the wars were not a great side by Minor Counties’ standards. They finished in the top half of the Minor Counties table in only three of the 20 inter-war seasons (in 1923, 1931 and 1937 when, unaccountably, they finished fourth of the 25 teams in the competition), were in last place once (in 1932) and next to last twice (1925 and 1933). Over the five seasons 1932 to 1936 they won just one of their 40 championship matches; oddly, this unsuccessful spell was book-ended by two of their more successful seasons. Yet throughout this period AB maintained his place as a consistent upper- or middle-order batsman, though he rarely made big scores. He had to wait until his 16th match for his first half-century for the county, but that innings eventually became his first century (104 against Cambridgeshire at Wardown Park in Luton in August 1929, during which he shared in a stand of 121 for the fifth wicket with his captain, and future radio commentator, Rex Alston). By the end of the 1933 season he had added a further five half-centuries to his tally, though the highest of these was only a score of 66 not out. Nineteen thirty-four started in similar fashion, though a new second-best score of 72 against Buckinghamshire at Wing was instrumental in the county’s only victory of that season, or any of those surrounding it. Things started to look up when he went to Fenner’s late in August in 1934 Poole was a loyal servant of Bedfordshire County Council as well as of Bedfordshire CCC. Here he is (seated, extreme left) with an office team in his early years with the Council.