Lives in Cricket No 45 - Brief Candles 2

16 So close Bedfordshire Standard may have been guilty of a little excess in describing the innings as ‘rank[ing] with the best in the history of Bedfordshire … the runs were obtained on a wicket that gave the bowlers some assistance [try telling that to the quicker bowlers who struggled with a wet ball!]. At all points AB met the attack with confidence, hitting all round the wicket with fine power and precision.’ His belligerence, and that of his lower-order partners, left Oxford needing 258 runs to win in a little under four hours. Unfortunately, rain meant that only a further 45 minutes’ play was possible, in two brief spells. In the 17 overs bowled by the Minor Counties, the university reached 23 for no wicket, before the game was finally abandoned at 4.30pm. That concluded the first-class career of Arthur Bertram Poole. You might have thought that a score of 91 not out on debut would have seen him selected for the match against the Indians the following week, but in fact the Minor Counties Cricket Association had selected two almost completely different sides for their two matches, with only F.C.de Saram (who had made only six and three in The Parks - though as noted he too had made four centuries in the 1935 Minor Counties season, when he made over 900 runs in only seven matches) common to both. The side against the Indians was surely the stronger of the two (it included Paul Gibb, Bill Edrich and Arthur Booth), but at this distance it seems harsh that no place was found for a man who had made his side’s highest score in the match only a week previously (indeed the highest score of the match for either side), and who had shown his ability to take the attack to the opposition when needed. But so it goes. 8 8 The Minor Counties lost the match against the Indians by an innings and 74 runs, after being bowled out for 42 in their second innings. Inevitably, their top scorer was de Saram, who scored 86 in the first innings. The scorebook records Poole’s highest innings, against Oxfordshire in August 1936.