Lives in Cricket No 48 - Maurice Leyland

One other individual worth a mention in this game was umpire ‘Fanny’Walden, standing in his penultimate Test match. Walden, a useful county cricketer with Northants between 1910 and 1929, had risen to fame as a brilliant winger with Spurs and England either side of the First World War. Standing little over five feet tall he clinched a place in football folklore in one match when he flipped the ball through the legs of a burly defender, dived through after it, and carried on up field leaving his astonished opponent trailing in his wake. Walden was teamed up with Frank Chester who officiated in Tests either side of the war and is one of cricket’s best known umpires. Whatever happened the players knew the game was in the best of hands. However, in the days building up to this Test there was not quite the same attention given to it as there had been some others. In the press, Yorkshire Post writer Jim Kilburn remarked ‘Precisely how much interest has been extracted from the Fifth Test match, because England cannot recover the ‘Ashes’, remains to be seen. There will, of surety, be huge crowds and much discomfort, and many meat pies and bottles of beer consumed. Whatever its significance in the season’s records, the Oval match will be an occasion.’ He wasn’t wrong! There was a clear sky, a bright sun and a cooling breeze when Hammond and Bradman took the field for the toss, the latter wearing a suit and trilby hat and looking more ready for an afternoon’s racing down the road at Epsom than playing cricket. Three times the Australian skipper had called wrongly in this series. They didn’t get as far as the toss in the rained-off Third Test at Old Trafford. With the composition of his side heavily weighted in favour of the bat he desperately needed a change of luck. It changed all right, it got worse! Hammond made it four in a row and decided to bat on a wicket that groundsman ‘Bosser’ Martin had prepared to ‘last ‘til Christmas’. This was to be a timeless Test and the skipper’s plan took that into consideration. Stories of him admonishing the batsmen from the pavilion if they dared chance their arm were a bit far fetched but he had certainly told them to take their time and occupy the crease. His instructions were to ‘win this game if flesh and blood can do it’. A very happy return 16