Lives in Cricket No 47 - Brian Sellers

19 Sellers and son stature, and making bigger scores, as a hard hitter. In August at Bradford Park Avenue ‘Sellers surprised the natives by rattling up a half century in three-quarters of an hour – it was one of his best efforts for the club – and he had a great reception when he retired caught on the boundary edge for 57 …’ At home to Bingley in the last match of 1929, he made ‘a brilliant 52 in characteristic fashion’ out of 148 for six. Keighley finished sixth out of 20 in the league, compared with fifth the season before; Sellers came second in the club’s batting averages with 564 runs at 31.33, far better than his 13.32 the year before. At their most extreme, matches approached the county game in length; in the first round of the Priestley Cup knock-out, over two days at Saltaire in June 1930, Keighley were in the field for 115 overs as Saltaire made 488. Sellers as the seventh bowler took two for 15 in three overs. Sellers then made 16 of Keighley’s 403 in 154 overs. He was still fielding tirelessly (‘a shining example to his colleagues’) and playing the Yorkshire way. For instance, in May he was not out 47 and Keighley 87 without loss when rain stopped play for the day, only when it became ‘too heavy’. He was among men who wanted to play; and win; and not lose. In June, after Keighley declared at 201 for eight, the visitors Pudsey St Lawrence batted out the last 14 overs as maidens to draw on 98 for nine. Those watching ‘verbally demonstrated their disbelief’. By 1931 he was captain. Yorkshire invited him to the April nets at Headingley; George Macaulay as part of his benefit was bringing a Yorkshire team to Keighley to play a team that Sellers chose. Sellers was becoming known around the county; only, on the evidence, he did not make runs often enough to demand a place among the first eleven. At Lawkholme he made a ‘masterly’ 76 in two hours – caught on the boundary from a straight drive after he hit a six over the stand – and ‘indulged in a daring experiment’ that worked, putting himself on as a bowler to bowl the last man, and so win nine minutes from time; however this ‘showed’, as the Keighley News reported, ‘that his discouraging Whitsuntide experience with the county colts had not affected him’. He was out for nought and eight against Lancashire seconds at Redcar, then out for two and one against Nottinghamshire seconds at Rotherham. In July, a week after the Keighley News said Sellers was not able to find his true form, he made a ‘masterly’ 104 against Bradford out of 205, his first century. That Sellers joined the Yorkshire first team, as captain, had two sides to it: his own claims, and the few other candidates. After the 1914-18 war and before 1932 – that is, 13 seasons - Yorkshire had six captains. Some were figureheads, and everyone knew it. In his 1950 history of Yorkshire between the wars, J.M.Kilburn described the duties on the field of Major A.W.Lupton, the captain from 1925 to 1927, as ‘not onerous’. Afterwards, as was well aired, the county offered their professional Herbert Sutcliffe the captaincy; which came to nothing, as members insisted on an amateur. In his early days the press only called Sellers ‘acting captain’ as he was standing in for Frank Greenwood. Under him, Yorkshire were county champions in 1931 for the first time since 1925. The captaincy for 1932