Lives in Cricket No 46 - George Raikes

92 Raikes’ Second Spell for Norfolk: The Minor Counties Championship Won note 3: To prove his point, the Duke went on to list 370,728 innocent animals that de Grey had ‘bagged’ between 1867 and 1900. They were: rhinoceros 2; tiger 11; buffalo 12; sambor 19; pig 97; deer 186; red deer 382; grouse 56,460; partridges 97,759; pheasants 142,343; woodcock 2,218; snipe 2,769; wild duck 1,612; black game 94; capercailzie 45; hares 27,686; rabbits 29,858; various 9,175. note 4: The Duke did not list all Franz Ferdinand’s kills but I have visited a sizeable hunting lodge in Bohemia that had once been owned by the Archduke and, to prepare us for the spectacle to come, the guide described the one-time resident as suffering from a ‘mental disease’ when it came to hunting. Sure enough the stuffed heads of the Archduke’s victims covered almost every inch of wall from floor to ceiling in a display which was most unsettling. note 5: For those whose history is poor, when the Archduke finally met his maker in Sarajevo it was, fittingly, because he was shot. note 6: Peter Wynne-Thomas has kindly investigated the doings of Nottinghamshire Club & Ground at around this time and found Raikes turning out against them both for Mansfield & District and for his ‘home’ team, Welbeck. Playing for Mansfield in 1906, Raikes took four wickets and then top-scored with 31 as the Club & Ground lost by 35 runs, but two games dated to 1911 and 1912 see him contributing little - perhaps, in his mid-thirties, he was a little ‘past it’ when it came to competing with full-time cricketers and could only watch appreciatively as Alletson scored a century in the first match and Sam Malthouse took all ten in the second. However, Raikes had more luck playing against Worksop College (a weaker side than the C & G) in 1911: he took the first four wickets to fall as the College were dismissed for 154 and then contributed an unbeaten innings of 136 as Welbeck finished the match on 223 without loss. note 7: Raikes and his wife, Maud, were domiciled in The Hermitage, Welbeck, Worksop – handily placed for the Duke’s cricket ground. note 8: George Pilch was the great-nephew of the legendary Fuller Pilch. note 9: Arthur Watson topped the batting averages and James Worman the bowling – but the bafflingly unsung hero was George Pilch. note 10: As for George Pilch, the hero of 1905, his scores in the Championship were 0, 1, 0 and 0.