Lives in Cricket No 45 - Brief Candles 2

55 If that was the case, then Collins’s first-innings duck, batting at number 11 (the scorebook suggests that he might have been out second ball), and his conceding 24 byes in the MCC’s two-innings tally of 602 runs, surely justified making Findlay the first-choice keeper for the rest of the season. But there was one fly in the ointment … By the middle of the second day of the match, MCC had taken a first-innings lead of 87 (302 against 215), and by the end of that day the University were 126 ahead with two wickets remaining. Their one overnight not out batsman was F.H. (Hubert) Hollins, a specialist batsman who had come in lower than usual (at number nine) because of a knee injury sustained while fielding on the first day. On day two at least, Hollins batted with a runner, who helped him to 13 not out overnight. On the third morning the ninth wicket fell at 236 (lead of 149), when ‘non-batsman’ Collins came to the wicket, and proceeded to transform the match. He reached 50 in an hour, and the partnership reached three figures in around 70 minutes. After 80 minutes batting together the euphonious pairing of Hollins and Collins had added a further 149 runs for the tenth wicket, of which Collins’s share was 83 with eight fours. At this point the MCC captain, Kingsmill Key, tried his luck with the ball, for only the Number 11 The Brasenose College XI of 1902. B.A.Collins is sitting on the right of the sofa as we look at it, with his hands in his lap. The only other first-class cricketer in the XI was G.B.Sanderson, seated far right, who played one match each for Warwickshire and Worcestershire, in 1901 and 1923 respectively. Like Harry Wilson and Edward Baker, he was run out in his only two first-class innings - but after a duck for Warwickshire, he made 16 for Worcestershire nearly 22 years later. (Courtesy of the Principal and Fellows of Brasenose College).