Lives in Cricket No 48 - Maurice Leyland

On Monday morning the England players awoke to the kind of Press and public interest not seen since ‘Bodyline’. The photographers were already at the hotel as they prepared to make the journey across London to the Oval and the YEP man snapped a relaxed looking Maurice sat at a table in the foyer alongside the laughing Arthur Wood. Laughing - you rarely found him any other way. Bill Bowes and Hedley Verity were pictured entering the ground and it appeared in the paper later that day under the caption ‘SPECTATORS’. Bowes later confessed that, rather than being a spectator in the first two days, he actually missed much of the play. “In between spells of watching the white-flannelled figures running between the wickets in the sunshine”, he revealed, “I took brief naps, conserving my energies for the hard labour which might lay ahead.” On Saturday there had been a streamof telegraphmessages to the England dressing room offering congratulations and best wishes to Wood on his Test match debut - now it was the turn of Hutton and Leyland to receive the accolades and goodwill greetings from every part of Yorkshire and beyond. If this attention put any extra pressure on these sons of the White Rose county it didn’t show. The men of the moment had made good use of their day off to get away from cricket and prepare themselves to start all over again, refreshed, and eager to inflict more punishment on the Australian bowlers. Maurice had contented himself with a comfortable round of golf on the RAC course just outside London while his partner took himself off to the sands at Bognor, on the south coast, for a rest. Hutton had begun to feel a twinge in the finger broken at Lord’s before the Headingley Test and he had batted in some discomfort at times on Saturday. However, the swelling had subsided and he now felt fine. The only drawback was the weather. There had been some rain in London on the Sunday and between 10.30am and 11am there were odd spots of rain, which gave little cause for concern, and Hutton, with Verity and Wood bowling, came out with his bat to acclimatise to the light and help get his eye in. Half a dozen of the Australians were there too for a little batting, bowling and fielding practice. Everything was looking good for a prompt start but, just before the start of play The match 24