Lives in Cricket No 48 - Maurice Leyland

The match 29 At tea England had taken their score on to 903 for seven, Hardstaff unbeaten on 169 and Verity not out eight, and at that point Hammond, fully aware of the casualties in the opposition camp, finally declared the England innings closed. Chuck Fleetwood Smith, having toiled through 87 tortuous overs, was eventually spared the ignominy of conceding 300 runs in an innings but his figures of one for 298 were nevertheless a new high for runs conceded. Bill O’Reilly finished with three for 178 and between them the two spinners managed to send down 1,032 deliveries in the innings - another record. It was the tea interval on the third day yet two of the England team, Bowes and Farnes, had still not actually been on the field of play but now they were ready. It had been a long wait, and there must have been a big dent in that dressing room couch, but they soon made their mark. With only one run on the board Bowes found the edge of Badcock’s bat and Hardstaff took the catch, at 19 Farnes removed McCabe and after a little sterner resistance Hassett was caught by Compton off Edrich for 42 and at the close of play the score was 117 for three. Having seen the stubborn eighth wicket pair of Bill Brown and Fleetwood-Smith add 41 runs, England finally removed the excellent Brown with a ball, it has to be said, a long way from being of the highest quality - fromMaurice. Hammond, desperate to get the innings over and force the follow-on had brought Maurice into the attack to try something different. Maurice was never one to shirk from that sort of challenge and his first three overs, for 11 runs, contained his usual variations. The first ball of his fourth over was something different again, a rank long hop ‘Chinaman’ that turned sharply, caught the shoulder of Brown’s bat as he went to turn it to leg, took a deflection off Wood’s gloves, and was superbly caught by Hammond off the rebound for 69 out of 201 for eight, innings closed. That was to be the only wicket Maurice ever took in a Test against Australia and Brown was never able to forget it. “I’m convinced it was the only ball that turned in the entire innings,” he said some 70 years later. His disappointment was not unreasonable. With his dismissal the last vestige of Australian resistance vanished. The second innings became a procession