Lives in Cricket No 47 - Brian Sellers

71 Howard Marshall in the Daily Telegraph . It was the last summer when you could believe, however foolishly, that all was well with the world politically. The Gentlemen were all out for 165 by 3.05 pm for what Marshall called a ‘very indifferent’ 165. Sellers, who went in at 160 for seven, was hardly to blame for the batsmen above him. Seam bowlers, including the Players captain Wally Hammond, had taken the earlier wickets. Hammond had brought on the Gloucestershire spinner Tom Goddard, presumably knowing tail-enders, and Sellers in particular, would struggle. Sellers duly did. ‘Sellers had an over from Goddard when the ball was apparently completely invisible,’ Marshall wrote, and escaped stumping by Les Ames three times. Cardus in the Manchester Guardian was cruellest to Sellers, who: lunged forward and missed aim time after time. Once he promised to fall on his chin, and was still reeling when Ames was returning the ball to Goddard. The wonder is that he did not take guard next ball facing Ames. He was stumped at last off Goddard amid general merriment. It gave Cardus a chance – and he took it – to play the same old gramophone record that batting wasn’t what it used to be. Worse for Sellers’ prospects, fielding for the Players besides Hammond had been Hutton, Joe Hardstaff and Denis Compton, the sort of younger men he would have to win over as captain. Sellers had shown himself up, and the sour-minded such as Cardus, and all those who disliked Yorkshire, had gloated. When the Players replied, Sellers was not used to his bowlers; as Cardus noted, ‘he himself occupied a post farther from the wicket probably than he has ever visited before’. This had symbolic and practical meaning; Sellers was not central to the play, and he felt unable to set his usual aggressively close fields. The Players were all out on the second morning with a lead of 64. Sellers, again batting at nine, went in when the Gentlemen were only 52 ahead. From the pavilion end Goddard was again flighting his off-breaks cleverly, and the one that went with his arm, and Sellers was still guessing. ‘Despite his anxieties, Sellers stayed there however, and was loudly cheered when he pulled Hammond for four, after 25 minutes, his first scoring stroke,’ Marshall reported. Sellers and Freddie Brown put on 63 until Brown was caught in the deep for 47. Sellers was left on 20 not out, and left the Players 121 to win, which they knocked off by 6.30 pm. Hutton, Sellers and fellow Gentleman Yardley at least had a free day before they joined Yorkshire at Nottingham on the Saturday. Brown and Goddard were among the England 12 for the next Test. Robins, still captain, was ‘the obvious choice’, wrote Harold Marshall. Sellers had not passed his audition. Sellers could only play as an amateur longer than most because he could afford to. When Sellers announced his wedding at the end of the 1932 season, at least one newspaper picked up that it was not yet known if Sellers’ ‘business duties’ would allow him to lead Yorkshire in 1933. According to his son Andrew, Sellers’ father Arthur told him ‘to get something to do during the winter’. Sellers’ father-in-law was an accountant for a business coming up for sale: Batsman, fielder, bowler – and England captain?