Lives in Cricket No 46 - George Raikes

111 based so that travelling was kept to a minimum; Rockland St Mary were played three times and Shotesham twice. As referred to above, the press did not consider the cricket played to be of a high standard and the scores recorded by Bergh Apton suggest that the pitches were in a poor state – their eight scores were: 20, 25, 83, 15, 32, 49, 76, 34. The opposition did slightly better with Bergh Apton’s final outcome being three wins and five defeats. The outstanding feature of the season’s play came from A.Smith of Shotesham in the return match in August; first he contributed an innings of 88 to his team’s 147 (the only time in Bergh Apton’s season that a team passed three figures) and then he took seven for 16 as Bergh Apton folded for just 32. Unsurprisingly the following season saw an increase in the number of fixtures honoured, with 13 being recorded. Bergh Apton, who had lost four of their first five matches in the previous year, again started badly in losing their first four fixtures, including two more versus Shotesham, against whom they were now ‘nought and four’ since the Great War. At this point the fortunes of the club turned and eight of the last nine matches resulted in victories (the exception being another uncomfortable loss against Shotesham). Two players stand out as having made six match- winning performances between them; one was the otherwise unknown F.Upton who, in four wins, recorded analyses of: eight for 19, six for six, six for 13 and six for 16, whilst, more relevantly, the other was George Raikes, who was able to make his debut late in August and play in the last two games of the season. His first game was against Loddon and he started unpromisingly, making only three runs whilst batting at number four. The team as a whole could only scramble together a total of 50 runs and Loddon would been anticipating a splendid victory – however, 50 was a sufficient score for Raikes to work with as, when Loddon batted, he returned the impressive figures of eight for 13 to dismiss them almost single-handedly for just 42. Noteworthy though the win over Loddon had been, his second appearance, against Hempnall, was even more remarkable. So far, only one team total in excess of 100 had been recorded in all games featuring Bergh Apton (as in the previous season, by Shotesham) but now Raikes led from the front and notched up an unbeaten century off his own bat. The innings was declared closed at 158 for five, presumably when Raikes reached his ton. On the very poor wickets of the day, the combination of defensive watchfulness (as often displayed by Raikes in his early days for Norfolk) and calculating aggression (as seen in his later days skippering his county) would have been a Godsend (!). For the next four years the fortunes of the Bergh Apton Club depended heavily on whether Raikes was able to turn out. It would be of little value to chronicle all its doings but a few of Raikes’ outstanding performances will be detailed so that an overall impression of Raikes’ predominance can be given. His first ‘task’ in 1921 was to break the hoodoo held over Bergh Apton by Shotesham and he duly succeeded at the first attempt. Bergh Apton’s total of 63 owed much to Raikes, whose top score of 24 was The Rector of Bergh Apton - The End of a Muscular Christian