Lives in Cricket No 47 - Brian Sellers

42 On the field meeting in January 1938: ‘… last year I felt obliged to comment on the slow play at times when very often more dash might have won the match. This year therefore I am pleased to say that an improved rate of scoring often enabled a victory to be obtained.’ Sellers made sure that Yorkshire seized a winning position, whoever made it. If Yorkshire batted first, they made runs at their tempo. Reporters called it cautious; painstaking; ‘no hurry or worry’, according to the Sussex Daily News , in August 1935. Yorkshire, already champions, made 220 in 102.1 overs – Mitchell’s 75 ‘occupied three weary hours’ – after Sussex made 274 in 95.5. How can we explain such slow batting besides Yorkshire’s will to win? First, teams then were bowling overs much faster than since – each of those innings took less than a day, and but for rain someone most likely would have won that match. Batsmen seeking runs too eagerly risked losing their wickets, which would set Yorkshire back the same as too slow batting would. Only the commanding total mattered, that gave Yorkshire time to bowl out the other team twice. At Nottingham in July 1934, for example, Sellers only declared one hour after lunch on the second day, when Yorkshire stood at 384 for six after 166 overs. As the Nottingham Journal reported, ‘as so often happens when a team is playing for time and not runs, wickets were soon going cheaply’. Nottinghamshire had to follow on, though they drew. Watchers didn’t much care for it. Likewise at Edgbaston in June 1933, after Yorkshire made 449 for five on the first day, the Birmingham Post noted that Sellers ‘did not show indecent haste in applying the closure’; Yorkshire batted on until 591 for six, their largest score since 1899. Again, Warwickshire had to follow on, but batted out the match. On such pitches favouring batsmen, Yorkshire might not force a win. That did not matter, because other teams might not win there either, and Yorkshire kept winning elsewhere. Len Braund and A.E.Street, umpires at Lord’s, June 1926.