Lives in Cricket No 48 - Maurice Leyland

The fall of Edrich brought Maurice to the wicket much earlier than he had expected and the crowd, doubtless mindful of past exploits against the Australians, had a special welcome for him as he walked out to join his 22-year-old Yorkshire team-mate Hutton. It was a moment the younger man never forgot. “I hadn’t seen the batting order when I left the dressing room,” he later wrote, “and O’Reilly stood in the middle of the pitch, arms akimbo, waiting, like myself, to see who was coming in. Soon the unmistakable thickset figure of Maurice emerged, rather like an old dreadnought steaming to battle. As always he wore his Yorkshire cap when batting for England. When O’Reilly recognised Maurice, he exploded: ‘Good God, it’s that Yorkshire bastard again.’At that moment I knew all was well for England.” Maurice responded by quickly getting off the mark in his own happy style and with O’Reilly, who had undone Edrich with a clever change of pace, being unable to make an impression on either batsman, Fleetwood-Smith, though no more effective, changed ends to relieve him. While the O’Reilly versus Leyland contest had been going on ever since the ‘Bodyline’ series it was perhaps this innings more than any other that, many years later, prompted one of the ‘Tiger’s’ most quotable snipes. Television talk show master Michael Parkinson once said to O’Reilly that Maurice was “one of the kindest, gentlest men” he had ever met. O’Reilly responded dismissively: “You never had to bowl at the little bugger”. This day O’Reilly certainly had to bowl at him and the ‘little bugger’ just batted and batted and batted - as did Hutton of course. Just after 1pm there was a brief glimmer of hope for Australia when Fleetwood-Smith finally beat Hutton, rapping him on the pads, but his shout for lbw was turned down by umpire Chester and the partnership continued through to lunch with Hutton on 39, Maurice 35, and England 89 for one. Only two runs had been added after lunch when Hutton went down the track to Fleetwood- Smith again, and missed it again. But, thankfully, the ball turned so much it also deceived wicketkeeper Ben Barnett who failed to gather cleanly and therefore missed a clear stumping chance. Bradman, at mid-on, flung his arms in the air in dismay. Things were just not going his way, but the batsmen were still dangling 18 The match