Lives in Cricket No 47 - Brian Sellers

LIVES IN CRICKET Brian Sellers Yorkshire Tyrant MARK ROWE ACS PUBLICATIONS Brian Sellers was the ‘most successful county captain of all time’ (Wisden 1940). While he led a great county team, that included Herbert Sutcliffe, Bill Bowes, Hedley Verity and later Leonard Hutton, he played his part. Having crushed early player resistance, he urged his men to win matches. That led to six championships in eight seasons to 1939. As impressively, under him Yorkshire won the first post-war championship in 1946 with an old side. Sellers went on to serve in Yorkshire and MCC administration and helped make decisions – Yorkshire’s sacking of Johnny Wardle in 1958, the start of one-day county cricket in 1963. As chairman of Yorkshire’s cricket committee, did he turn dangerously tyrannical? The outcry after the sacking of Brian Close in 1970 – and the as fateful choice of Geoffrey Boycott as captain – suggested he did. Off the field as on it, Sellers put Yorkshire first, as men admitted even if they feared him or found his swearing crude. His very certainty that he knew what was best brought his downfall, and let his club in for decades of trouble. £15.00