Lives in Cricket No 5 - Rockley Wilson

result” was a better outcome than a drawn match with points awarded for first innings. Only two runs were needed by Yorkshire with their last pair of Dolphin and Wilson at the wicket but the lead eluded them, the match thereby ending as “no result”. Whether or not the criticism that the batsmen did not try to go for the runs is justified, it is significant that when Leicestershire sought agreement to play an extra half hour in an effort to get a result one way or the other, the Yorkshire captain, D.C.F.Burton, would not consider it. 76 Wilson played in four other first-class matches in 1920 after the close of the championship season. By then he had been selected for MCC’s tour of Australia. Taking these matches into account, Rockley finished the season with a batting average of 13.44 and 64 wickets at a cost of 13.84. The four matches were for the Rest of England against Middlesex; the County Champions, at The Oval; for Yorkshire against MCC; for the Gentlemen against the Players; and for the MCC Australian Touring Team against C.I.Thornton’s XI, all at the Scarborough Cricket Festival. The Rest of England side against Middlesex consisted largely of players who would shortly be leaving for Australia. The match was drawn, the Rest scoring 603 in their first innings with Jack Hobbs emphasising his pre-eminence among English batsmen with a double century. Rockley Wilson was the most successful of the Rest’s bowlers taking four for 44 in Middlesex’s only completed innings. In Yorkshire’s match against MCC, captained, as was the Rest of England side in its match, by H.D.G.Leveson Gower, Rockley Wilson captured ten MCC wickets, four in the first innings and six for 29 off 15.4 overs in the second, in an easy Yorkshire victory by nine wickets. Wilson also had a good match for the Gentlemen, also captained by Douglas, taking three wickets in each of the Players’ innings and batting out time in very poor light with David Burton, his Yorkshire captain, to secure a draw for the Gentlemen in a match in which they were decidedly second best. In the MCC Australian Touring Team match against C.I.Thornton’s XI, which also included some of the tour party, the MCC team won easily by an innings and five runs, Wilson taking two for 17 in the opposition’s first innings and two for 7 in one over in the second. Scarborough was always among Rockley’s favourite cricketing venues. He had played there several times over the years for club First-Class Cricket After the War 75 76 This account is based on Pullin, op.cit., p.164.