Lives in Cricket No 48 - Maurice Leyland

165 In Memoriam Hilarem and Yorkshire passion, Yorkshire character at that. We won’t many times know the like of Maurice Leyland. Myself, I grieve at the loss of a friend who, seldom met over many years, has remained warm in memory.” On January 8, Ian Peebles, writing in the Sunday Times , offered a more reflective piece that looked at the characters around whom Maurice lived his cricketing life as well as the man himself. Peebles, who had played alongside Maurice for England against Australia in 1930 and in South Africa the following winter, was well placed to assess his former colleague and it is no surprise to see him home in on Maurice’s sense of humour. He began his reflections with a war-time story, a match between the Army and Navy at Lord’s, and, as he wrote: The immediate contestants were a gallant Naval officer, straight off the Arctic convoy, and the Sergeant Leyland (M). The mariner was a leg-break bowler, but recent practice had been confined to slinging depth charges at sundry U-boats. As, additionally, he had yet to find his land legs, it was not surprising that his first four deliveries could be described as ‘distant’ rather than ‘wide’. The fifth was just within reach and Sergeant Leyland made a polite gesture at it, which resulted in a gentle catch to mid-on. “As he passed the fielder the batsman gave hima congratulatory nod. ‘Y’know,’ he said, ‘Ah don’t get much practice against that stuff.’ Now Sergeant Leyland is gone, and not without considerable sorrow and suffering in his latter days. He was never daunted, looked the world four-square out of an unwavering blue eye, and voiced his views with a massive simplicity and unerring wit. Having shared his version of other oft-repeated humorous anecdotes about Maurice and his Yorkshire colleagues of the 1930s, Peebles concluded: “This may seem a strange obituary but it is, nonetheless, appropriate. For none contributed more to the general enjoyment than Maurice himself.” The news of Maurice’s death was announced throughout the cricketing world and among the flood of cards and letters of