Lives in Cricket No 47 - Brian Sellers

18 Sellers and son when they were 36 for three after half an hour. ‘It was left to two younger members of the side,’ Sellers and Allan Shackleton (who played twice for Yorkshire under Sellers nine years later), ‘to pull the game around.’ Sellers was out at 136 - caught one-handed at third slip – ‘for a very fine 45’ in 50 minutes. Sellers was promising enough to be one of 14 amateurs invited to the ‘winter shed’ at Headingley in April 1926, where the former Yorkshire and England all-rounder George Hirst ran his eye over talented lads. Having averaged 13 in 1925 – not bad in a league where teams often made double figures – Sellers had an unsuccessful 1926. He was in and out of the firsts; admittedly perhaps only because he was doing other things, as he did not feature in the second team averages. In any case he did better in 1927. He did little in the first matches, then batting at four made the second top score out of 191 as Keighley easily beat Baildon Green: ‘The crowd were treated to a glorious half hour from Sellers …. Sellers made many brilliant strokes including two drives out of the ground and it was unfortunate that with his score at 24 and his form good enough for a hundred he should have ended his career leg before wicket.’ Sellers was already showing his adult style, ‘busy’, ‘lusty’, ‘bright and free’. In June 1927 his 33 rescued Keighley as they beat the league leaders Idle. He treated spectators ‘to a gloriously fine spell of resolute hitting’, bringing up 100 ‘with a great hit over the boundary in front of the pavilion. Next ball however he attempted to repeat the stroke and was bowled.’ In the last match of the season Sellers opened the batting. He developed further in 1928. In a June innings of 33, ‘of correct batsmanship’, Sellers ‘showed an encouraging habit of being able to sort out the right balls for hitting and never resorted to mere ‘slogging’’. The local press was beginning to report his outstanding catching and fielding. At Bankfoot in July, the home captain and top scorer played a ball towards Sellers at cover, and set off for a run, to avoid having to face the fast bowler any more: ‘Everybody knows of the agility of Sellers and the next moment Smith was walking a sadder and probably wiser man back to the pavilion.’ Keighley won narrowly; Sellers was seeing for himself how fielding could turn a match. Besides learning the skills of the game, he was taking in its more subtle culture. In August for example he was out for seven after hitting ‘a prodigious drive’ into the football field, because he was forcing runs on the brink of victory in case rain came. He was showing himself ready to lose his wicket for the sake of the team. He was learning the rules, sometimes the hard way. In 1929 he was out in an unusual way, when ‘he noticed that a bail was not properly in its groove. He put it into its correct position whereupon the wicket-keeper appealed with the result that the square leg umpire gave him out.’ By 1929 Sellers was usually opening the batting. We have a glimpse of his life outside cricket in July when he was once late half an hour on the field, as he had a motor accident on his way to Keighley’s Lawkholme Lane ground. Only the well-off could afford to drive then. He was growing in