Lives in Cricket No 47 - Brian Sellers

69 at the usual round of club and league dinners, claiming for instance that the Australians were ‘flaid to death’ of bodyline. Even his use of dialect was a sign of confidence. County cricket then, like the country, was not quick to bring on the young. Sir Home Gordon had said of his ‘newcomers’ that ‘three or four years hence some of these should prove themselves more than competent’. That within four years Sellers was a genuine candidate as captain of England said as much about the lack of other options as about his own rise. Column-writers agreed that fewer amateurs were around with enough talent and experience to lead England. Only moral and class prejudice kept a professional cricketer from captaining his country, just as only sentiment long stopped Yorkshire choosing men born outside the county, and patriots later howled at a foreigner managing the England football team. Arthur Carr, himself a former England captain, in May 1934 listed six men as in the running for the captaincy against Australia: Percy Chapman (the ageing Kent captain), Bob Wyatt (captain in four Tests), Cyril Walters (captain for the first Test, who significantly Carr slighted as ‘hardly strong enough in his control over professionals to be seriously considered’), two county captains Maurice Turnbull (Glamorgan) and Bev Lyon (Gloucestershire), and Bryan Valentine, (playing under Chapman and only Batsman, fielder, bowler – and England captain? The 1939 West Indies tourists. Standing (l to r): Fergie Ferguson (scorer), Gerry Gomez, Jeffrey Stollmeyer, Leslie Hylton, Tyrell Johnson, Bertie Clarke, Peter Bayley, Foffie Williams. Sitting: George Headley, Ivan Barrow, Rolph Grant (captain). JM Kidney (manager), John Cameron, Learie Constantine, Manny Martindale. Front: Kenneth Weekes, Derek Sealey, Vic Stollmeyer. Glamorgan captain Maurice Turnbull.