Lives in Cricket No 46 - George Raikes

74 a lead of 37. Derbyshire then batted Hampshire out of the game; Raikes took but one wicket as they passed 300. Hampshire then collapsed to the bowling of Hulme, who took seven wickets – including that of Raikes who was bowled before getting off the mark. And so Raikes’ career for Hampshire came to an end. He had indeed ‘done a job’; if his bowling for the county was less penetrative than it had been for Oxford University (averaging 30.24 as opposed to 20.39) he more than made up for it with a better than expected performance with the bat (his average increasing to 27.27 from 12.77). If he had been both asked and available he could surely have done more, especially in the annus horribilis of 1900. One of the final sightings of Raikes playing cricket in Hampshire was early in June 1902, when an absolutely clear sign of a radical change in his style of bowling went almost unremarked. St. Mary’s Vicarage, a team containing only one layman, were playing against the RMA. Batting first, the vicars made just 122 with Raikes making what for him what was a relatively disappointing 26 and the RMA would have been favourites. However, the press reported that St Mary’s skipper, Dr Cecil Wilson, the Bishop of Melanesia, set a field for Raikes that did not seem compatible with his usual worthy seam-up. It instantly become clear that Raikes was purveying the leg break – and that it was wasted on the RMA, who folded Cecil Wilson, pictured when playing for Kent in 1890. Four years later he would be appointed Bishop of Melanesia and would still hold that office in 1902, when he captained George Raikes in the first match during which the latter was definitely known to have been bowling leg-breaks. The Curate of Portsea; Was Raikes A Muscular Christian?