Lives in Cricket No 50 - Tom Emmett

53 Yorkshire Captain 1878-1883 almost always when the aristocratic match sponsors, particularly Lord Londesborough, rather than the county committee, selected the Yorkshire XI for games at Scarborough and Lord’s, Carter was appointed captain, even though Emmett played. (It should also be noted that Emmett was Yorkshire captain in the 1880 Scarborough Festival game with the MCC, when Carter did not play, although five other amateurs did). The exception to this – an ordinary county game in which Carter, rather than Emmett, was captain - was the Gloucestershire match in 1878, but here it appears there was a considerable social element to the away match, and the county committee appears to have wanted to be represented at the match banquet by an amateur, who on this occasion was referred to as Yorkshire captain and lauded as a Cambridge ‘double blue’. Despite being the official Yorkshire captain, Emmett was not present at the banquet, although this exclusion is not a surprise. The previous summer at Scarborough, for example, all the MCC amateur players, but only Sims and Carter (the two amateurs) from the Yorkshire team attended an evening entertainment in honour of the MCC, arranged during the match. How Emmett felt about all this we can only guess, and it is intriguing to consider what would have happened had Carter been available more often in 1878, since the club minutes indicate that the latter was invited to play in all matches after 20 July. There were a further seven county games in that period that he missed. Thus, there is some evidence that Emmett was appointed as a compromise and until such time as the county could appoint an amateur. A suitable candidate (both a ‘gentleman’ and a ‘Gentleman’) finally made his county debut in 1881, and the Hon. Martin Hawke – introduced by Rev.E.S.Carter – finally took control in the summer of 1883. Despite all this, in 1878 many thought the choice of Emmett as captain was a very sensible one, and he had in fact previously captained a Gentlemen and Players of Yorkshire side against Lascelles Hall in 1876, suggesting he was seen as an appropriate candidate. The Morning Post approved, hoping that he would ‘infuse a little of his enthusiasm and energy into the county eleven.’ The Sporting Life also commented in July 1878 that: we do not think that there is in any county a man more fitted for the post of leader of a team. If example is of any value, Emmett is the man for the place. No day is too long or too tiring for him. From the time that play is called in the morning till the going down of the last of the wickets, the indefatigable left-hander is always at work. His brisk, active nature shows itself in everything that he does. He hits hard, runs hard, works hard in the field, and bowls very hard indeed. Others were less sure. A correspondent to the Yorkshire Post commented ‘with all due deference to Tom Emmett, who is an able and worthy cricketer – I think the mantle should have fallen to Andrew Greenwood.’ Some of the misgivings may have come because he was perceived as too consensual to be a leader. Looking back in 1893, Emmett himself told Cricket Field that ‘the Yorkshire players were always easy to work with,