Lives in Cricket No 46 - George Raikes

95 Raikes’ Third Spell For Norfolk: The Championship Won Again Norfolk were due to play ten regular season games in the Minor Counties Championship in 1910 and the Duke of Portland was kind enough to permit George Raikes sufficient time off to play in seven. On at least one occasion (the home match with Nottinghamshire second XI) he was delayed at Welbeck and failed to arrive before 1pm. Such was his importance to the team, both as a skipper and as an all-rounder, that there was no question of his being ‘stood down’ and replaced by a lesser cricketer who was present at Lakenham at the start of play. As in his previous title-winning season of 1905, Raikes’ least effective match as skipper in 1910 was his first, a draw against Suffolk. The wicket at Lakenham was wet and Raikes started in great form, thoroughly bamboozling the visiting batsmen and finishing with figures of 10.5-0- 24-9 as Suffolk collapsed to a total of just 47. Included in his ‘bag’ was a ‘hat-trick’, his victims being skipper Herbert Wilson, A.B.Barnes and James Forrest. During their innings Raikes had a chance to show his magnanimous side. The Suffolk number three, V.J.Lewis, had just gone in to bat when a heavy shower prompted the taking of an early lunch; he wandered off and the occurrence of a nasty thunderstorm lead him to think, wrongly, that play would not resume for quite a while. Alas for Lewis, he misjudged the quick-drying nature of the Lakenham wicket and, when he finally returned to the ground he found that play had restarted without him, Charles Wilson going in at number ‘five’. Raikes would have been quite entitled to deem Lewis ‘out, absent’ but instead permitted him to resume his innings at the fall of the next wicket (note 2) . When Norfolk went into bat they decided that runs were at a premium and attempted to graft out a match-winning lead, Raikes and Dunning especially batting with “extreme caution”. The eventual lead of 61 seemed fit for purpose but the Suffolk batsmen raised their game and, having seen off Raikes whose two wickets were expensive, they were even able to make a challenging declaration, setting Norfolk 102 to win in 80 minutes. Raikes juggled his batting order but Norfolk fell just four runs short with two wickets remaining and had to content themselves with the points for a first innings lead. Raikes was unavailable for Norfolk’s second match, an innings thrashing by Durham, but returned to right the ship against Bedfordshire, very much leading by example. Norfolk bowled their hosts out for 169 and responded by piling up 345, mostly thanks to Raikes whose innings of 142, containing one five and 18 fours, was described as ‘masterly’. He was lucky to be missed twice before he reached 40 and his half-century took nearly 90 minutes but then he upped the pace and thrashed the tiring Bedfordshire attack by adding a further 90 runs in the next hour. The extent to which Norfolk’s band only had one man was indicated by the facts that no other batsman passed 35 runs and that, when Bedfordshire batted again, Raikes had an analysis of 16-3-37-6 to ensure that Norfolk would not need a second knock. The Eastern Daily Press was moved to comment that “in Mr Raikes Norfolk possesses not merely a great player, but a leader who has the great gift of inspiring others”. There followed a trip to Trent Bridge to play Nottinghamshire second XI for a game which was largely, but not entirely, a run feast. Some 560 runs were scored on