Lives in Cricket No 48 - Maurice Leyland

Chapter four Mum’s the word The abiding memory that Maurice Leyland left with most people he met was one of a good-natured, kindly man; an outstanding cricketer; and, above all, someone with a great sense of humour and ready wit. But not everyone outside of Yorkshire understood him. His cousin Wilf used to say that ‘some people didn’t like him because he could be a bit abrupt and didn’t say much’. The fact is Maurice was, indeed, a man of few words but he did use them to maximum effect. Often, the desired effect was to raise a laugh, with him the butt of his own jokes, but his wit could be sometimes be cutting. In almost every reference you can find to Maurice, whether newspaper reports or the recollections of his contemporaries, there is a story illustrating his great humour. Among those tales is the one of the time he came off the field, having been dismissed without scoring, only to be confronted by an autograph hunter at the pavilion gate. Now, many, perhaps even most, players would have brushed the young lad aside and made little attempt even to be civil - not Maurice. He stopped, took the book, and then dryly enquired, “Do you want me to draw a picture of a duck alongside it?” It was not easy for hecklers to get the better of him either. Having missed a catch in the outfield one day, during an Australian tour, he fell victim to the inevitable cat-calls from the home crowd. One shout of derision could be heard above the rest: “I could have caught it in my mouth,” to which Maurice replied: “If I’d a gob as big as thee so could I!” There was another occasion in Australia when his quick thinking took the sting out of what could have become a nasty situation. Again while fielding close to the boundary objects from the crowd were being hurled in his direction. First a cushion, then a dust bomb, and then bottles. First of all an empty, followed soon after by a full one. At that point he picked up the full bottle, turned to the crowd and said, “Nah then, can anybody lend me an opener?” Openers were offered and Maurice promptly whipped off the bottle top, took a swig, and put it back down on the boundary with instructions 46