Lives in Cricket No 5 - Rockley Wilson

out of Cambridge’s first innings total of 325. Opening the batting for Cambridge before a crowd of some 19,000, on a pitch that after overnight rain assisted the bowlers, Rockley batted with much circumspection. Indeed he scored only eleven runs in his second hour at the crease and only four while Dowson was scoring 38, though later in his innings he did become more adventurous. He was seventh out when he unluckily played on off his pads to R.A. Williams after four hours at the crease. Rockley followed his marathon innings by taking five wickets for 71 off no fewer than 45 overs in Oxford’s first innings, a considerable feat of stamina as well as of skill. The match could well have been won by Cambridge for when Oxford were 149 runs behind in their second innings with only three wickets to fall, F.H. Hollins edged a ball into the slips where Rockley caught it “three or four inches from the ground” (in his words) only for the batsman to be given not out as both umpires were unsighted. Not for nothing did Wisden say “he was quite the hero of the match”, and The Times that “he stood pre-eminent.” As Rockley’s brother Clem had scored a century for Cambridge against Oxford in 1898, this was only the second time that brothers had scored centuries in the University match, the previous pair being H.K.Foster in 1895 and R.E.Foster in 1900. A hundred at Lord’s was a splendid finale to his season of first-class School and University 30 This cartoon of 1901 has “Lord Yawkshire” saying “Hm, very good - but I haven’t a vacancy just now. I-er-almost wish I had.” Wilson’s batting in the Varsity match of 1901 advanced his case for selection by Yorkshire: he did not, however, play for the county in that year.