Lives in Cricket No 48 - Maurice Leyland

Ashes to Ashes 99 establish some financial security outside the game for he went on to establish his own sports retail outlet, in Brisbane, that expanded from half a shop on the ground floor to three storeys of the same four-storey building. On the field life alongside the nation’s hero did prove a drawback for some though Bill, who describes himself as ‘just a young scrubber’ at this point, was quite happy to ride in the great man’s slipstream. “It was interesting to see crowd reactions, at Sydney, at times, “ he said: Jack [Fingleton] and I would open the batting with empty seats everywhere but, if we were still there at lunch, people would start coming in. They guessed it wouldn’t be long before one of us was out and Don would be in. After lunch, they’d give you 15 or 20 minutes and then they’d start getting restless - now you were batting in ‘Bradman time’. If a ball hit you on the pad then the whole crowd would appeal, not just the opposition. They’d come to see Bradman, not us, and they wanted us out. This sort of thing certainly didn’t upset Bill. He remained on good terms with Bradman throughout his life and Jesse Bradman, Don’s wife - later to become Lady Bradman, of course - was in fact godmother to Bill and Barbara Brown’s second son Peter. There was also one occasion when he had every reason to thank Don for a century during the 1933-34 season, as he explained: Don came to join me at the wicket one day when I was on 70 or so. He came down the wicket and said, ‘We’d better get you your hundred before the new ball’, then due at 200. So, from then on, every time he faced a ball he’d push a single and give me back the strike, and I eventually hit a four to go to 103. At that point he was still on 15 but suddenly he opened up and hammered the ball to all parts of the ground, in a tremendous display of hitting, and passed me on 128! That same season Bill started to be talked about as a possible member of the Australian tour party to England. He never let himself think too much about such things but if he, or the