Lives in Cricket No 47 - Brian Sellers

66 Having rescued Yorkshire, Sellers – ‘who more than any other captain seems able to make runs when they are urgently necessary’, the Manchester Guardian said – gambled when on 89, as the last man Bowes was a notoriously bad bat. Sellers hit Harold Butler to leg for six, out of the ground. As that brought up the 200, Nottinghamshire could take the new ball anyway. Sellers hit another six to leg to take him to 101, and was 103 not out of 209 when Bowes was run out. Arguably Sellers’ finest innings was in July 1934, at Sheffield against the Australians. Sellers won the toss and chose to bat on a soft pitch that took plenty of sawdust (‘it presented the appearance of a strip of ground undergoing intensive horticulture’, C.L.R.James wrote in the Manchester Guardian ). Sellers entered at 149 for four when Hans Ebeling bowled Cyril Turner for ten; and Ebeling almost bowled Sellers first ball. He and Smailes ‘weathered [Clarrie] Grimmett, then hit him’ and added 74 at better than a run a minute. Sellers ended the Saturday 49 not out of 238 for six. In the first over on the Monday Grimmett bowled Smailes round his legs. The Australian bowling never bothered Sellers, C.L.R.James wrote: He shoved Grimmett round to fine leg, dashed out unexpectedly twice and smashed him to the boundary twice; he cut Wall through the slips to the boundary, in the nineties he stepped back to Ebeling’s half-volley and drove it for four past cover’s hand. At 99 he ran out rather recklessly to Fleetwood-Smith, but made everybody happy by hitting him to fine leg for four. His cricket was sound, polished and vigorous, and after Wall bowled him he had a great reception …. However, Bradman overshadowed Sellers. He came in at 16 for one, wearing a sweater despite sunshine, and made 140 of the next 189 in less than two hours. After a sketchy first quarter of an hour, his second 50 came in 23 minutes, the last 40 in 20. ‘No living batsman and few dead ones could surpass the ease, the variety and the power of the 22 fours and two sixes,’ C.L.R.James wrote. In the second innings, Sellers made only 13, but added 58 with the stand-in opener Wood, as Yorkshire batted long enough for a draw. Bradman also impressed as a fielder; as did Sellers. Bob Wyatt in his staccato way summed up Sellers well in his 1939 book The Ins and Outs of Cricket : ‘A magnificent fielder, usually seen at cover point. His speedy and accurate throwing saves many runs. Always sets a fine example in the field.’ In a 1982 collection, County Champions , Duncan Kyle recalled seeing Sellers, with ‘that sailor’s gait of his’, leading Yorkshire down the steps at Bradford in 1946: … grinning and hurling the ball jokily at Arthur Wood from a range of about five feet, and Wood, with his trencherman’s shape and his fox-terrier reflexes, taking it sweetly and flicking it back, and the crowd delighted and relieved to see that these were still the same men; after six summers of war. Again, Yorkshire resembled the Australians by insisting on good fielding. That throwing around of the ball, as the Australians did, prepared everyone, cemented a symbolic and practical Batsman, fielder, bowler – and England captain?