Lives in Cricket No 48 - Maurice Leyland

and, coming in at eight, hit 83 to give his side a first innings lead. By way of a footnote, Maurice later related a tale of unexpected adventure following the second Sydney Test. Apparently he and three of his team-mates, put all thoughts of the cricketing controversy behind them and went for a motor boat outing. They stopped and anchored in a little bay for a while. There was a dinghy available to row to shore but it was as comfortable, and almost as quick, to swim and that became the preferred mode of travel. However, to their horror, at the end of what had been a wholly successful break, they learned that the particular stretch of water they had chosen for their recreation was in fact shark- infested. Sydney was also the setting, earlier in the tour, for another Maurice mishap. Despite being advised by his skipper that the Australian sun could be particularly harsh on the lighter skin of Britons, and that sunbathing should be limited to no more than 20 minutes, our Maurice overdid it on a Sunday at the beach - a day when Verity, relishing his relaxation in the sun, tongue in cheek, observed: “What a marvellous tour this would be without the cricket.” The next morning he arrived back at the ground in some discomfort from the sunburn but decided to grit his teeth and say nothing to Jardine. Bill Bowes was aware of the situation and when he saw the skipper march up to Maurice and give him a huge slap on the back by way of a greeting, he had great difficulty suppressing the laugh which immediately welled up inside him and was forced to make a quick exit to avoid giving the game away. However, Jardine, in uncommonly jovial mood, then took Maurice to one side and, with his arm leaning heavily on those red raw shoulders, proceeded to discuss tactics with him at length. Bowes later confessed, “I often wondered if DRJ actually knew all along what had happened.” Maurice once said: “A multi- millionaire could not have such enjoyment as a cricketer going to Australia,” and this trip was, indeed, one never to be forgotten. At the start of the tour Maurice, as he had done often in the last few weeks of the summer, opened the batting and made 127 in a double century opening stand with Sutcliffe (154) against South Australia. The circumstantial evidence would perhaps suggest Against the best 90