Lives in Cricket No 47 - Brian Sellers

10 Oxford, May 1932 club, off the field; all affected each other – as they do in any group of men, sporting and otherwise, in good years and bad. Success soon came to Sellers; but not easily. Being skipper at the start – well, you see it was not very pleasant. One had to get to know the players. I’d met them, rather seen them when we’d been at the Headingley nets together, but nothing more than that. So I had to get to know them. I was the only amateur and stayed at my own hotel. The pro’s were always frugal; they knew the good cheap places, the great little pubs and the pubs and hotels looked up the fixture lists and booked their regulars up a year ahead. I didn’t like the idea much, being on my own. In the first match, at Oxford, I stayed at the Mitre, but on coming away from The Parks Maurice Leyland said to me, ‘I don’t know what you’re doing tonight but you can join us if you like.’ I hadn’t liked to intrude, but they made me one of the circus. As Sellers added, comradeship developed. Note, though, that Sellers did not feel he could invite himself. As significant, the invitation came from Leyland, a senior player, but not as senior as Sutcliffe; although the rest of the team must have agreed first. Sellers took time to find the right voice. In old age Fred Trueman told how, according to ‘old players’, Sellers in his early days might say ‘my father says’, and Macaulay once replied: ‘Here’s t’ball then. Get your dad to come and bowl these bastards out.’ Once he had settled, Sellers could make a joke – and let the whole county in on it. Responding to one of the toasts at the dinner in Pudsey in October 1938 to mark Len Hutton’s record 364 for England, Sellers told the gathering of 300: ‘I am very proud of the team; that is something that will live in my mind forever. There are times when I have got up their backs.’ The Surrey team 1934.