Lives in Cricket No 48 - Maurice Leyland

First steps to stardom 59 second innings to follow a none for 19 return in the first. It was a little better in the second game, when Yorkshire went down by an innings and eight runs to the old enemy Lancashire, but having hit a top scoring 36 in the first innings he clearly forgot uncle Fred’s lessons and was run out in the second without scoring. A pair in the game with Cheshire and 14 not out against the Huddersfield and District side, followed by five, 12, five and 18 in two games against the Yorkshire Council, saw him still struggling to make his mark with the bat but returns of five for 19 and seven for 49 provided a dramatic turnaround with the ball and suddenly it was a different tale. He hammered an unbeaten 72 off the Airedale and Wharfedale League attack, 42 and 18 in the return with Lancashire seconds, at Harrogate, on August 2 and 3, and though he was again dismissed without scoring in the second innings of the return with Cheshire, the following week, he did top score in the first with 36. The next game was due to be played at Doncaster onWednesday, August 18, against the Doncaster League but Maurice was at Harrogate’s St George’s Road on the Tuesday when he received a telegram from the county offices. He was told to immediately meet up with the first team, who were involved in a Championship game with Middlesex, at Bradford, and travel to Southend for their game against Essex, as Roy Kilner had been taken ill. He duly packed his bag and set off for Park Avenue but when he arrived the game had already finished with Yorkshire, hit by the absence of Kilner, going down by four runs. The team had already left the ground and that meant a journey to London alone for the 20-year-old. If that was not bad enough he then found himself with ever mounting problems when he arrived in the capital in the early hours of the morning and couldn’t raise the night porter at the team’s hotel. Rather than try and find another hotel, and then run the risk of missing his train to Southend in the morning, he set off to find Fenchurch Street station. Tucked away in a sort of eerie no-man’s land between the silent city, deserted nightly after the close of business, and the edge of the poverty stricken, crime ridden East End, the Fenchurch Street station waiting room did not make for a comfortable night’s sleep. Nevertheless Maurice was undaunted by the whole affair and having finally met up with