Lives in Cricket No 47 - Brian Sellers

29 stuck to his original acceptance of Yorkshire’s offer in 1927. After Sellers, Sutcliffe was next in line. In July 1935, Sutcliffe was captain at Nottingham when Sellers damaged an ankle and did not play. After Larwood hit Mitchell on the back of the hand so that he could not field, Sellers fielded as substitute, under Sutcliffe. An intriguing story made the front page of the London Evening News on Friday 11 August 1939. Sutcliffe, injured and at home, gave a short interview. That newspaper – and many others that picked up the story – speculated that, like Hammond, Sutcliffe might turn amateur (although Sutcliffe called that ‘Tommy rot’) and then become captain. Yorkshire that day were playing at Leicester. The local Leicester Mercury put it to Sellers: was he retiring, to make way for Sutcliffe? ‘It is entirely new to me, the first I have heard of it,’ Sellers replied. Sutcliffe likewise denied it, as unfair to Sellers, while admitting ‘at various times in recent years’ he had thought of turning amateur; but not since August 1938. What can we make of this? Had the original reporter made a meal of at best a year-old story? Was Sutcliffe testing opinion? And why then, with war plainly so near? At the least we can say that Sutcliffe felt – or others felt it for him – that he deserved to be of officer rank, as he was in the 1914-18 war. In May 1936, while Yorkshire were in Oxford, a story made the newspapers from the county’s recent winter tour of Jamaica. Sutcliffe in disguise had batted in a Sherwood Foresters battalion match between officers, and the warrant officers and sergeants. The Oxford Mail reported how the publicity amused Sutcliffe. He did correct one detail; ‘actually I turned out for the officers’. Bill Bowes In 1934 the Nottinghamshire captain Arthur Carr rated Bowes as ‘our’, meaning England’s, ‘best new ball bowler’. Carr described him as ‘fast medium’ rather than fast, who could however thanks to his height bowl a ‘nasty length’. Spectators around the country for years jeered Bowes for bowling short and nearly or actually hitting the batsman. E.W.Swanton reported a most blatant example, at The Oval in August 1932: Bowes who had not seemed likely to get a wicket by ordinary methods began to bowl wicked-looking bouncers which pitched well short of halfway. The spectators showed their displeasure at these methods in no half-hearted manner … Hobbs treated the short ones with amused contempt and twice after successive balls had whistled over his head he walked slowly up the wicket and deliberately patted the ground on the good length spot the other end. To the third ball Hobbs had to duck in a great hurry and then seemed to have a few words with Bowes, probably a reminder that they were engaged on a game of cricket and not a baseball match. Was Bowes trialling Bodyline in front of Douglas Jardine? Either way, Sellers must have approved. Sometimes he made Bowes bowl long spells; an hour and a quarter in that case against Surrey. Two games later at Hove, Sellers gave Bowes an hour and a half on the second evening, and another The line that disciplines the fell