Lives in Cricket No 48 - Maurice Leyland

127 Signing off ground. With their own side just eight points behind, but having played a game more, this was one contest they just had to win as the failure to do so would effectively present their arch rivals with the Championship. Yorkshire won the toss, batted, and rattled up 35 in half and hour as Hutton and Gibb took advantage of some erratic bowling from Bill Phillipson. But, no sooner had Phillipson been withdrawn from the Lancashire attack, than Hutton (16) got a thin edge to a Dick Pollard outswinger and Eric Edrich took the catch behind. At the other end Gibb (20) then took an almighty swipe at new bowler Bill Roberts, bowling orthodox slow left arm, missed it by the proverbial mile, and heard the clatter of ball on stumps behind him. Barber, in at the fall of Hutton, was hit on the hand and only just survived Edrich’s dive to catch him, while 26-year- old Willie Watson, still trying to establish himself in the side, decided to leave his first ball, from Pollard, and promptly lost his off stump. From 36 for no wicket Yorkshire were suddenly 39 for three and the game took on a vastly different complexion. Barber’s early uncertainty quickly developed into what looked more like blind panic and though Maurice, who had joined him at the fall of the third wicket, looked sound, the run rate slowed to a stop. A huge appeal for a catch at the wicket, which drew no response from the umpire, offered Barber no more than a transitory lifeline for he was caught by Ben King at backward short leg off Roberts’ very next ball. For Leeds-born King, who played his pre-war cricket with Worcester, this game offered him both the opportunity to succeed against his home county and yet another chance to show Worcestershire how wrong they were to let him go. King had offered to play for nothing until he reached 1,000 runs provided they paid him £1 per run thereafter - but they wouldn’t take him on. In the event he would not have made a fortune but he did make his mark in this game for he finished top scorer with a knock of 122. But, more of that later. After Barber’s departure for four, at 41 for four, Maurice was joined by Smailes and the two left-handers set about arresting the slide. Eric Price, another slow left armer, came on and, pitching unfailingly on middle and leg, bowling to three short legs, long