Lives in Cricket No 47 - Brian Sellers

53 On the field Chester with his decisions. It seemed to me a sporting thing to do. The difference between the public space of on the field and the private space off it became obvious when a batsman was out. In old age Sellers recalled: It was very rare when the incoming batsman did not arrive in the pavilion that we did not have a discussion about what went wrong. We’d have a post-mortem nine times out of ten but it wasn’t resented because it was the same with us all – it was part of behaviour, nothing personal, purely constructive. We’d say, ‘you know you played across that one, right across …’ it was communal self-help. That Sellers used the Latin ‘after-death’ shows how serious it can feel for a batsman to be out. Given that they were playing six days a week and might be out four times a week, one man could not upset the group with self-centred tantrums. And given the constant pressure for wins – a championship might turn on a single win or a draw – everyone, as Sellers understood, had to contribute to the improvement of all. Hence what Norman Yardley recalled as a ‘bold experiment’ in July 1939. Yardley was out of form and Yorkshire were third. Sellers proposed that Yardley would swap places with Sutcliffe and open at Northampton with Hutton. It had worked for Sellers when he began with four zeroes in 1935: ‘never being afraid to take a risk, he promptly moved himself up in the batting order to number three’ and made runs against Cambridge University. In each case, the batsman found form against weaker bowlers; the swapped batsman let himself be unsettled to do a good turn for another. Like any well-run group, the Yorkshire eleven - whoever they were on any day – set aside their different characters. They were, as Bowes recalled, ‘at all times students of the game’, whether on the field, or watching carefully off. On their second day at Oxford in May 1936, Yorkshire were all out for just after lunch for 356, a lead of 206. The Oxford Mail noticed that the Yorkshire players took a good look at a ‘notorious spot’ on the pitch: ‘Verity could be seen rubbing his hands as if in joyful anticipation.’ Anyone could see that gesture, and yet who could say for sure what it meant (were Verity’s hands cold?). Who could tell what Verity, or anyone, was thinking? These men were on stage, and yet in private, at the same time.