Lives in Cricket No 47 - Brian Sellers

41 On the field Trent Bridge since 1891; apart from their fast bowlers Larwood and Voce, most Nottinghamshire players were ‘in the grip of a strange inferiority complex’, the Nottingham Journal claimed in June 1933. Sellers must have inherited much of what Yorkshire hardness stood for, or already knew it from Keighley. He took his first Championship in August 1932 by winning 14 of the last 15 matches – and rain ruined the other. Early in that streak, Yorkshire beat Gloucestershire at Bradford. In a 1948 book Wally Hammond – who by then could have held a grudge against Sellers – praised Yorkshire for deserving the victory, ‘if ever a team did’. After tea, Sellers was making his fielders run across the pitch to change their places between overs, to save in all a few minutes – and Yorkshire won by 133 runs, with minutes to spare. You could only win by playing; at Northampton in July 1938 Yorkshire went on fielding until the rain was falling sharply, and returned to the field despite slight rain. That is not to say Yorkshire played no matter what. In June 1937 at Nottingham, the home batsmen came off for bad light for a quarter of an hour in the evening. Spectators complained. When Nottingham papers asked Sellers, presumably hoping he would complain too, he said ‘we should have done exactly the same’. As significant as his frankness was a sign of how Yorkshire got on with the job: ‘Those of us near the wicket had been unable to see for half an hour before they came off.’ Some pitches crumbled so much that batsmen could not last three days; some were so easy to bat on, a draw was almost certain. A team became champions by forcing wins between the two extremes. It took some doing, bowling sides out twice, and scoring more runs than them, inside about 18 hours of play – less for bad weather. Sometimes, margins would be tight; whoever turned most draws into wins would come first. And here Sellers came in, as ‘something of a slave-driver’, as Bill Bowes put it in his autobiography, Express Deliveries . Sellers made the difference by urging fielders to hurry and bowlers to try harder, when those players might have settled for a near-win. In any workplace carrying on a routine, the temptation is to have as easy a working life as you can get away with; and to seize any chance to rest your legs. The umpires, often old players, were no better; Yorkshire won by an innings at Leicester in August 1938, despite a slight delay on the last day because an overnight storm soaked umpire Len Braund’s coat in the dressing room; and play had to wait until it was dry. Contrast that unhurriedness – did Braund have to wear a coat to umpire?! - with Bill Edrich’s word-picture inside the pavilion at Bramall Lane - most likely 9 July 1937, a rained-off final day - of ‘sheeting rain’ stopping play, and Sellers ‘prowling restlessly about as he always does when rain wastes cricket time’. Sellers did not only have 16 other counties to beat, but the invisible treacle of plodding life that can surround us all. Sellers was only passing on the slave-driving from above: from the committee and president. In 1937, Yorkshire became champions again, after coming third to Derbyshire and Middlesex the season before. Lord Hawke, re-elected president for a 41 st year, could tell the club’s annual