Lives in Cricket No 48 - Maurice Leyland

and no doubt the conditions of the sky and barometer will have much to do with the final composition of the team. If the ball seems likely to turn, then Verity, Goddard, and (in these days a bowler of pretensions), Leyland: if the prospect suggest a kindly wicket, Farnes, Bowes and Wright; some of these, of course, in any event. It seems scarcely likely that Hutton, Edrich and Fagg will all find places, and current form may here be the deciding factor with the memory of past achievements and the vagaries of temperament not unimportant considerations. In any event I fail to see how the selectors could have done better; should Australia win this game and so add the ‘rubber’ to the Ashes already certain to remain in their keeping we shall have little room for complaint. We shall have offered our strongest challenge, and if that be insufficient, why, then, we must acknowledge our inferiority with good grace. The Tribute to Yorkshire Perhaps the most significant feature in the whole selection is the nucleus of Yorkshiremen; even now in Bradford, Sheffield, Horbury and Heckmondwike there will be cries of ‘Not enough’, but four for England is no small tribute, and the quality of every one is indisputable. The return of Leyland was considered inevitable, yet the appearance of the name is joyously comforting; the appearance of his broad back and his broad bat will also, no doubt, be comforting when the battle is on. The Oval teems with Leyland’s runs. It is also not without notable memories for Bradman, but to that fact we can turn unseeing eyes, at any rate, until next week-end.’ The summer of 1938 had been a strange one for Maurice. The visit of the Australians had once again fired the imagination of the cricketing masses but, while always relishing a scrap with the old enemy, he was never once heard discussing the prospect of reappearing on the Test scene himself. “As far as he was concerned,” recalled his nephew Geoff, “he would never make an issue of things like this. If it happened, it happened. He was always very proud to be selected for England 10 A very happy return