Lives in Cricket No 47 - Brian Sellers

49 On the field is a suspicion of artificiality in the contriving of them,’ The Times sniffed the day after, as only it could. But all the players enjoyed it, Hammond recalled. At Sheffield on Tuesday 1 August 1933, after a blank second day, Yorkshire could only hope to lead Hampshire on first innings and take five points. They did while Leyland and Sellers put on 71 for the fifth wicket in 35 minutes, until Sellers – who admittedly only made 21 – skied a drive. Yorkshire could have batted carefully all day and saved themselves some fielding; instead they entertained the 5000 spectators. When Hampshire had to bat for the last 90 minutes, Sellers gave his regular bowlers less work by putting himself and Wilf Barber on. This was not dull, neither ‘circus’ nor ‘cemetery’ cricket, as Hammond said. By 1946, when Sellers had put his stamp on Yorkshire, given his record and that many of the players he inherited had retired, the notoriously careworn matches against Lancashire between the wars had become more purposeful. Hutton hooked the first ball at Manchester for four, and from 83 for five Frank Smailes and Sellers added 61; as Kilburn put it, ‘a half volley was seen as a half volley’. The best evidence that Sellers had a soul was the look of the man. At Manchester in 1938, Yorkshire at 285 for five were already 152 ahead when Sellers joined Leyland; Ronald Symond wrote in the Daily Mail how Sellers ‘clouted Iddon for a mighty six to long on’: … and continued to lay on with relish. Though now in his 32 nd year the Yorkshire captain still moves and bats with the characteristic angular movement of an outsize colt – all arms and legs ... obviously enjoying his fun at Lancashire’s expense. This was human, not ‘mechanical efficiency’. As in any organisation with its own culture – the way it did things – Sellers was giving and taking at the same time; his words and deeds were influencing others and being influenced. Some things were out of his hands. To be the champion club – to repeat, the one that won most games – Yorkshire needed pitches with something for bowlers. When Arthur Sellers proposed the toast at the annual reunion lunch at Old Trafford in April 1932, he said: Wickets have been prepared in recent years in a way that gives a bowler little chance … there is no encouragement for the fast bowler. When the sun comes out after rain bowlers should come into their own but they often do not. We in Yorkshire have decided there shall be no undue preparation of wickets and we do not cover them. That means the bowler has an equal chance with the batsman. Players saw it differently from the committee chairman. The Bradford wicket usually had ‘some help for the seam bowler’, Bowes wrote; ‘there are few pitches in England so nasty’, reckoned Bill Edrich. Sellers spoke more like his father: ‘ … let us have more wickets where the bowler has a chance. Given natural wickets there is no need to talk about five day Tests, we shall finish them in less than four.’ Although a batsman, given the choice Sellers took the bowlers’ side. In a famous Roses match at Manchester in June 1933, Sellers won the toss, and chose to