Lives in Cricket No 46 - George Raikes

96 Raikes’ Third Spell For Norfolk: The Championship Won Again the first day, with the home team passing Norfolk’s total by 44 runs, both teams being dismissed. When Norfolk went in again at the start of the second morning, it was obvious that large numbers of runs were needed quickly if Norfolk were to have any chance of snatching a victory and Raikes thought, correctly, that he was the man to provide them. Promoting himself to open the batting, he dismantled the Nottinghamshire attack, scoring 125 in two hours, striking 19 fours and hitting “with great power and fairly [dominating] the cricket”. Aided by knocks from Walter Thursby and Eric Fulcher which were both speedy and sizeable, Raikes was able to declare, setting the home side 330 to win in three hours. The runs dried up as Nottinghamshire fared no better than Bedfordshire when required to bat against Raikes’ bowling on an ageing wicket. On this occasion he returned figures of 10.2-2-46-7 against a team whose morale appeared to have collapsed. In the next match, Durham were again lucky to find themselves playing against a Norfolk eleven without its skipper but they failed to take full advantage of batting first when not one of their top four batsmen managed to trouble the scorers (note 3) . They struggled back into the game and eventually set Norfolk 72 to win in 80 minutes. For the second time in the season a match finished tantalisingly close as time was called with Norfolk requiring just four, with only the last man yet to come in. There was nothing close about Norfolk’s next match, a comfortable defeat at the hands of Suffolk and, with the season more than half way to completion and only two wins recorded, the Championship looked beyond them. Luckily Raikes was available for the rest of the season. Norfolk next played host to Nottinghamshire second XI, who must have regretted their choice to bat first when Michael Falcon took seven for 53 to dismiss them for 175. The response of the home team was most uneven: eight batsmen managed to accumulate 16 runs between them; Falcon and Gervase Birkbeck scored 51 and 48 respectively whilst the captain struck up a fine knock of no less than 133 out of a total of 267. His innings lasted three and a half hours and contained nine fours, the Eastern Daily Press commenting: “He waited for the hittable ball, and hit it very hard, making some admirable drives. Raikes has a wide range of strokes in front of the wicket, and the foundation of his success is built upon a superb defence.” The statistics suggest that he started in one of his more obdurate moods before speeding up: whilst Falcon contributed as many as 51 of the 79 runs that he added with Raikes for the fourth wicket, Birkbeck’s share of the 137 that he added with his captain was his entire innings of 48. It would be a kindness to draw a veil over the second innings of Nottinghamshire seconds; just as in the match at Trent Bridge earlier in the year they collapsed, presenting cheap wickets to those bowlers who were lucky enough to be asked to purvey. Norfolk were not required to go in a second time and nor were they in their next fixture against Cambridgeshire. Raikes again starred with bat and ball: first he took six for 70, being: “the best of the bowlers”, then he top-scored with 83 out of a total of 414, the Eastern Daily Press describing: another fine innings…good shots all round the wicket. Like Nottinghamshire second