Lives in Cricket No 47 - Brian Sellers

68 bond between players, and was a burst of playfulness. Sellers was as at home ‘scouting’ in the deep as ready to snatch the ball almost off the bat. While 21 st century fielding in general may well be better than in previous centuries, Sellers was surely as skilful as anyone. At Hove on Wednesday 26 August 1936 – a remarkable day as Sellers bowled 12 overs, more than he bowled in most seasons – Jim Parks was first out, when he played to cover for a single, ‘but A.B.Sellers speedily fielded the ball and registered a direct hit’. As with tactics and team culture, Sellers was not pioneering, merely joining other outstanding fielders, one generation among others before and since. That contemporary-sounding, indeed clichéd, phrase ‘it is catches that win matches’ came from Lord Hawke in 1904. Just as number elevens are overly, even amusingly, proud of their batting, so Sellers was more of a bowler than his first-class career total of nine wickets might suggest. For Keighley he was a fifth or sixth bowler; which for league cricket was very occasional, as a couple of professionals might do much of the bowling. He did most in 1933, when he bowled the ninth- most overs for Yorkshire in the County Championship. At Leyton in mid-July he opened the bowling in the first innings with Macaulay – for a single over, then Verity came on. Against Middlesex in the next match at Bradford he took two tail-end wickets for ten, his best first-class figures. That was enough for the Yorkshire Post to talk up Sellers as likely to open the bowling with Arthur Rhodes at Bournemouth: ‘Sellers has a natural ability to make the ball swing away and there are those who have watched him closely who say that with the necessary experience and practice he ought to become a new ball bowler of some merit.’ In fact two reserves, Charles Hall and Cyril Turner, opened the bowling; Sellers came on first change and took one for 19 in five overs. Meanwhile Sellers’ main three bowlers Verity, Macaulay and Bowes, besides Sutcliffe, were among the 12 for the second Test against the West Indies at Manchester. Again as first change Sellers only bowled six overs, out of 134, in the second innings, and only bowled eight overs in the next match, when his main bowlers were back. Such detail shows that Sellers only bowled to fill a hole. In the New Zealanders’ second innings at Headingley in July 1937, Sellers as the eighth bowler had figures of two overs for one run; which hid the four balls he sent to the boundary for 16 byes, so that the total passed 200 and he could claim a new ball, a trick that almost worked as two more wickets fell and the tourists drew with nine men out. The same trick worked at Headingley in July 1936. Yorkshire beat Surrey by an innings and 185 runs – which sounded an easy win; yet at 3 pm on the last day, when the umpires would draw stumps at 4.30 pm, Surrey only had five wickets down. Sellers bowled what The Times termed one ‘distinctly original’, maiden over, that included nine wides and four byes. Bowes and Smailes took the new ball and the last five wickets for five runs. While Sellers was not much of a bowler, he at least proved that he lacked vanity. Sellers soon made a name for himself. A stalwart of The Cricketer , Sir Home Gordon, named Sellers as captain of an ‘interesting side of newcomers’ in the magazine’s annual for the 1932-3 winter. In his first winter as county captain Sellers showed himself a willing and opinionated public speaker Batsman, fielder, bowler – and England captain?