Lives in Cricket No 47 - Brian Sellers

46 On the field they were in the city in August 1935. Yorkshire did play that way, when they had to. At Chesterfield in August 1933, Derbyshire’s spinners so tied down Sutcliffe and Sellers, they didn’t score in the 15 minutes before lunch. When Sellers hit the last ball of the second over after lunch for three runs, cheers greeted what the ironic Derby Evening Telegraph called ‘this very unusual enterprise’. Often, however, the other team was the slower scorer. In May 1937, on another batsman’s pitch at Edgbaston, Yorkshire totalled 492 in 153.2 overs, pipped to first innings points by Warwickshire’s 496 for eight, in 177 overs. T.B.Duckworth rightly pointed out Yorkshire’s negatives (‘their bowlers tend to send down so little bad length stuff’) and positives (‘quick decisive running’ of singles that ‘players of other counties would never dream of obtaining’). Under Sellers, Yorkshire played without sparkle - whatever that meant; they did what they had to, and no more, always keeping in mind that they had to keep going over a four-month season. Just as with Bradman, many observers reached for the same metaphor. E.W.Swanton watching Surrey fall to Bowes at The Oval in August 1932 marvelled at ‘how such a wonderful machine as the Yorkshire side ever comes to be beaten’. By the end of that 595 for six at Edgbaston in 1933, the less impressed Birmingham Post felt ‘one could respect the almost mechanical efficiency of the batsmen without being moved to enthusiasm by it’. At the dinner at the Savoy in London during the challenge match in September 1937, Bill Bowes sat next to Tuppy Owen-Smith of Middlesex who called Yorkshire’s cricket soulless. The charge stuck with Bowes. ‘Were we soulless?’ he asked a dozen years later in his autobiography. He thought back also to when he missed seven weeks of 1937 thanks to an operation on his knee. In hospital in London he received ‘the odd letter or so from Hedley Verity, Maurice Leyland and Herbert Sutcliffe’ – in other words, none from his captain. Sellers did want to know him, but only as a fully fit bowler. Bowes recalled how at Bristol, one month after his return, Sellers said ‘that he would recommend dropping me from the side if I did not do better’. Bowes asked: ‘If I bust my knee for keeps will you take responsibility?’ ‘I’m only interested in performances,’ Sellers answered. In nine matches and 30 days after Bowes’ return from a career-threatening injury, he had bowled 336.1 overs – so Sellers hardly gave him an easy recovery; and taken 35 wickets; hardly a failure. Those wickets however came every 57.6 balls, much worse than his career average of one wicket every 45.4. Significantly, in those eight Championship matches (the other was a draw against the New Zealand tourists) Yorkshire drew five and only won three. In the rest of that season, Yorkshire won 15, lost two and drew three. It was no coincidence; without Bowes at his best, Yorkshire were no champions. Bowes came good; so did Yorkshire. That exchange with Sellers rankled Bowes, as he admitted. Sellers had a point, but only with statistics, and ‘performances’ for Yorkshire – all abstractions; Bowes had a point about what was best for his body. In truth Bowes was not asking if he and his team had a soul; only if Sellers did. Outsiders asked too, and with irony for Bowes. In May 1953, the satirical magazine Punch mocked the Yorkshire cricket team as stone-wallers, who