Lives in Cricket No 47 - Brian Sellers

85 Treachery in Australia 1946/47 for which he is famous were not taken but even with one leg he would score more runs than I ever would!’ Sellers was honest about himself and generous towards others; Bradman was still ‘a very great player and I only hope he will play in the Tests’. Sellers was already offering his philosophy – Edrich, though quick, was bowling too many balls off the wicket, ‘just a waste of energy, that’s all’. Sellers, watching through binoculars, knew what to look for. After the vice-captain Yardley led MCC to a win over Victoria in Melbourne, Sellers praised him, ‘though I thought he would have done better after lunch to have brought third man to slip’. Yardley had changed his bowlers well but left gaps in the field, ‘and he must study the batsmen a bit more’. Sellers already saw faults (‘the bowling will improve with better fielding’). Still at Melbourne, a thunderstorm and hailstones as big as peas, ‘to make me feel quite homesick’ meant no play on the first day against an Australian XI. Sellers noted that Hutton in the field slowed as he neared the ball, after he had slipped once: ‘in this game you must be well spiked or else you cannot do your stuff’. Yardley and Hutton played under Sellers at Yorkshire and would have to take the criticism; but could others, above all Hammond, the captain and the greatest English cricketer of his time? On 12 November, with the first Test in Brisbane 17 days away, Sellers sounded more strident: ‘One thing stands out a mile and that is that the fielding is not up to standard by a very long way. If there is no improvement before long we shan’t win the Test and that is a certainty.’ A week later, he reported that the Australian 12 was younger than England’s, ‘which will give them an advantage in the field’. Hadn’t the selectors thought of how the huge, hot ovals of Australia called for young legs? As Sellers had never been to Australia before, perhaps not. By Friday 22 November, a week before the Test, Sellers and the touring party were in Brisbane. The next day Sellers made the Post ’s front page: ‘Brian Sellers criticises Hammond’. The newspaper called it ‘pointed criticism’; only by 1946, rather than 21 st century standards. Sellers stuck to examples and avoided abuse. He wrote as one captain about another. Hammond’s captaincy had surprised him ‘a great deal. His field placings I cannot understand’. Sellers wished to see Hammond ‘smile a bit more and give some encouragement to the team when they do anything’. This incidentally gave insight into how Sellers led men: ‘A word now and then does wonders.’ At times Sellers sounded more like the anxious selector: ‘Ikin has hardly bowled at all. Hutton not at all. Why he didn’t use non-regular bowlers more is beyond me … when things aren’t going right the skipper must experiment with non-regulars.’ And Sellers returned to the fielding; which had improved, ‘but more attention must be paid to backing up. Many runs have been thrown away through not doing this.’ England captain Wally Hammond.