Lives in Cricket No 48 - Maurice Leyland

Field of dreams 120 League, at Bradford, in which the great West Indian Learie Constantine hit exactly 100 and then bowled Maurice for 20 in the Yorkshire reply. The following August he turned out for the Army against the RAF on his home town ground, at Harrogate, and hit 56 before being stumped by Yorkshire team-mate Paul Gibb - one of five victims for the keeper. In the same game Sergeant Len Hutton made 58. Two days later Maurice travelled to Trent Bridge and there he hit 78 at less than a run a minute and, in five very interesting overs, took three for 34 while captaining an Other Ranks eleven against The Officers. That innings contained one six and eleven fours with Wisden remarking that his ‘… drives and pulls, made as vigorously as ever, earned him special applause’. On September 6 it was almost like old times when a crowd of 10,000 gathered at Lord’s to see Major Gubby Allen lead out the Army side against a Lord’s eleven and Maurice rose to the occasion with an innings reminiscent of some of the match- saving best he usually reserved for the Aussies. Coming in with the score on 39 for three he hit 42 in an 81 run partnership with Denis Compton in only 50 minutes and helped turn the game the Army’s way. Compton went on to hit 114 in a total of 235 for nine and sharing the limelight with him was his Middlesex ‘twin’ Bill Edrich - although the two men were on different sides in this game. Edrich, who was serving in the RAF, had just been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and when he came out to bat for the Lord’s XI eleven was applauded all the way to the wicket. Ironically he was soon out to a brilliant catch by his old mate Compton. There is a special mention of Maurice in Wisden’s review of the 1942 season, RC ‘Crusoe’ Robertson-Glasgow remarking: “Among the older men, Sgt M Leyland and Sgt Instructor MS Nichols suggested intimations of immortality.” The game which perhaps prompted this comment was another Lord’s affair, in May, between the Army and Sir Pelham Warner’s eleven. This contest, like so many played during war-time, was to raise funds for the Red Cross but that was where the charity ended. There was certainly very little given away out on the pitch where Maurice, facing a torrid time against the bowling of a young Alec Bedser,