Lives in Cricket No 48 - Maurice Leyland

Ashes to Ashes 102 Bill hit another half century at Old Trafford in the Third Test, collecting 72 in a second wicket stand of 196 with the superb Stan McCabe (137), before falling to another Walters catch, this time off Northants’ left arm paceman Ted Clark, and though his final scores in the series were no score, 15, ten and one the Australians were winners by 562 runs in the final Test at the Oval, and with the games at Lord’s and Old Trafford drawn, the Ashes were on their way back home with them. Memories of this trip are understandably vague when it comes to certain statistical details but Bill had many happy, enjoyable, lasting impressions of England at that time. “I very impressed by the beautiful county grounds and by how good the light was on these,” he recalled: I also clearly remember how good the crowd were. In the match against the MCC, at Lord’s, I dropped a catch on the fence and fully expected a barrage of abuse. You know the sort of things, ‘How much did you have to bribe ‘em to play?’, ‘They gave the ticket over here to the wrong bloke’, and all that sort of carry on. But, someone just said quietly, ‘Hard luck young Brown’ and that was it. While Bill Brown experienced the odd frustration, not least getting out for 15 in the Fourth Test and ten in the Fifth, only to see Bradman and Ponsford enjoy partnerships of 388 and 451 respectively, he nevertheless emerged with great credit. His final Test batting analysis was 300 runs at 33.33 and, of course, he finished on the winning side. But, on the return journey to Australia he was talking to Alan Kippax one day and said, that having scored around 1,300 runs, he’d “had a good trip”. “It was then pointed out,” he said, “that Don had scored 2,900 in the same time - that quietened me down a bit!” From an English point of view there was disappointment at the loss of the Ashes but Maurice was left to reflect on the fact that only Hobbs, in 1926, and fellow Yorkshireman Stanley Jackson, in 1905, had scored more runs for England in a home series against Australia, than his 478; he finished top of the English Test averages; and, what is more, he had gone a long way to