Lives in Cricket No 47 - Brian Sellers

70 Kent captain after the war). While Sellers was not on Carr’s list in 1934, by 1936 he was a contender. Yorkshire newspapers at least were calling Sellers the best man for the job. In July 1937, Looker-on in the Sheffield Telegraph said: ‘…if his batting last season had been more consistent he would probably have been chosen to make the tour in Australia last winter …’ Frank Woolley in his autobiography King of Games , that came out for the 1936 season, offered a 16 for Australia’ as chosen after the 1935 season. It included Sellers under Gubby Allen as captain. Allen, one of the few amateurs able to play for England on merit, lost the Test series in Australia in 1936/37 but, all agreed, did well as captain on and off the field. He could not give enough time to cricket to carry on. Robins, the regular Middlesex captain who could play for England on merit as an all-rounder, was the leading candidate for the 1937 season, ahead of Sellers. ‘If only Brian Sellers had been a slightly better bat he would have been the perfect choice as a skipper of many an England touring side,’ wrote Yardley later. In other words, Sellers’ ‘strong personality’ would knit together a party abroad for months, a skill not as needed in the English summer. The typically generous Robertson-Glasgow said much the same in his 1941 sketch; Sellers’ personal ability ‘at its best, has been little below England standard’. In a 1948 book Bill Edrich went further: ‘Brian Sellers was so good a skipper that it was a perpetual amazement to all cricketers that he was never selected to lead England.’ Could Sellers make up for a lack of runs from his bat by saving runs with his field placings, taking wickets thanks to his bowling changes, and motivating others? To do for England what he did for Yorkshire? It was plausible enough for those in authority to give him an audition. On 7 July 1937, the newspapers named Sellers as captain of the Gentlemen against the Players at Lord’s, starting a week later. The Times approved: ‘The North of England wanted him to be given recognition, and at last he has obtained it.’ Robins, who had already captained England in the first Test against New Zealand, was not playing. ‘Better late than never!’ wrote Looker-on in the Sheffield Telegraph on the Saturday before the match. He talked up Sellers and looked a year ahead to the next Australian visit: Brian Sellers is the best captain in the country ... He knows all the ‘tricks of the trade’. He is a brilliant fieldsman and extremely popular. He has a happy personality which enables him to get the best out of his men. Sellers has Yorkshire grit: he is a fighter: and against the Australians we shall want a fighter. Much may depend on how he succeeds in next week’s representative match. Bob Wyatt and Norman Mitchell-Innes walked out in the sunshine to open for the Gentlemen. ‘There never was a better morning for cricket,’ wrote Batsman, fielder, bowler – and England captain? Kent captain Bryan Valentine.