Lives in Cricket No 48 - Maurice Leyland

with the ‘Order of the Red Triangle’ badge for continuous YMCA service from the start of the war. There is a particular poignancy about these wartime cuttings and photographs for among them is a 1941 picture of five happy smilingYorkshiremen in uniform, at Headingley, teaming up once again for a match in aid of the Red Cross. Sergeant Major Frank Smailes, Captain Herbert Sutcliffe, Sergeant Maurice Leyland, Sergeant Instructor Leonard Hutton and, lastly, Captain Hedley Verity. It was one of Verity’s last organised games of cricket. Although, at one point, Maurice was considered a possible successor to Roy Kilner (1,003 wickets at 18.46) as Yorkshire’s foremost left arm spinner Verity undoubtedly ensured the battle for succession would be no contest. It is clearly ludicrous to suggest that the absence of regular cricket was a major human hardship in the light of the genuine tragedies affecting the lives of millions during the six years of war. However, sport and entertainment has always provided the public with a welcome diversion in times of trouble. The poet and literary critic Edmund Blunden was a lifelong cricket fan and in response to a number of suggestions he decided, soon after joining the staff of The Times Literary Supplement in 1943, to put a few thoughts into print in the book Cricket Country . Though born in London and brought up in Kent, his choice of cricketing heroes was catholic. We know this because Maurice is there among them: It is a little confusing, but I think I recognise this place, and that grandstand. What is this paper I am so tightly grasping? Why, of course, a Rover’s Ticket; indeed without this magic paper I should not have been seated here right against the ropes, with such a perfect view of the turf and the wicket only waiting for the action. That hand-bell sounds like it should; and those white coats come solemnly forth into the sun according to the laws of Nature. And who is that, soon afterwards emerging? The Majesty of Gloucestershire! It is WR Hammond, and others of the like intention are after him - one of them is telling some gorgeous story as they go; I hope E Hendren will field over here, for he will probably tell the story to us as well if ever the Field of dreams 122