Lives in Cricket No 50 - Tom Emmett

54 Yorkshire Captain 1878-1883 and when I was captain I never used to have any trouble at all, because we all worked together.’ This could be interpreted as Emmett avoiding hard decisions, but this seems harsh. As West put it, Emmett was ‘by no means a bad captain. He possessed a rare talent for placing the field, and he found it easy to work the rest of the team.’ 44 Whatever the views, his time had come. Emmett’s first season as captain saw an improvement in Yorkshire’s fortunes. It still finished only sixth but in the strained language of one contemporary reporter, ‘The county has not had an unchequered season, but taken on the whole we have greater cause for congratulation than regret.’ Lillywhite’s considered that Emmett’s first season as captain was a success. It noted that in 1877, the responsibility had adversely affected Lockwood’s batting, but the following year, Emmett had not only been an ‘able general’ but he had batted with more success than usual, fielded smartly himself and kept the rest of the field alive. He had also been ‘wonderfully modest’ in putting himself on to bowl, but when he had done so, he had also been successful. 45 The summer of 1878 also saw Emmett receive his benefit, having first applied for it two seasons earlier. It proved to be a considerable success, at £600 raising twice as much as Luke Greenwood’s 1874 benefit, and easily eclipsing John Thewlis’s. His benefit match was against Gloucestershire at Sheffield in July, where the home side won by 244 runs. Yorkshire batted first andmade amodest 158, Louis Hall top scoring with 45. Gloucestershire took a first innings lead thanks to 62 from W.G.Grace, who marshalled the tail well. Hall and Ulyett then scored 80 for the first wicket, before Ulyett (109) and Lockwood (107) added centuries. Other contributions helped Yorkshire to 360 all out, a marvellous turnaround. Needing over 300 to win, Gloucestershire crumbled in the face of ‘irresistible’ bowling from Bates (7-38) and Ulyett (3-32), and were all out for 73 in under 40 overs. The accounts for the Emmett benefit fund, published in December 1878, showed that gate receipts for the match were £425 and some £305 in subscriptions were also raised. The expenses of the players for the Sheffield fixture and the return game at Cheltenham had been £148, and printing and advertising costs around £23, leaving a benefit fund the equivalent of some £66,000 in 2017 terms. There seems to have been some delay in bringing in all the money. In November 1878, Maurice Dodsworth, the honorary secretary of the Emmett Benefit Committee, commented that, despite a request in September for subscription books and lists to be returned, 34 were still unaccounted for towards the end of the year. Eventually all the money was collected, and on his return from another tour of Australia in May 1879, Emmett was presented with the ‘handsome sum’ of £616 13s 1d. The Sheffield Independent reported that: Everybody feels pleased that Emmett has reaped such a satisfactory harvest....Emmett expresses his gratitude to his admirers for their generosity; and the hearty and able manner in which Mr Dodsworth, Mr Stratford, Mr Hibbert, Mr Wostenholme [sic], and other gentlemen