Lives in Cricket No 52 - Schooled in Cricket (2nd edition)

84 lack of height would thrive on hooking and cutting and pulling, he would often have to play a different role. His consistency was more marked with the ball. He delighted that he could tease even the most illustrious of batsmen with his temptingly slow deliveries as well as seriously spinning his way. At one time or another in his first-class career he dismissed almost all of the famous batsmen of the day that he came up against – and usually more than once. He had Denis Compton lbw for 50 on Johnny’s first appearance at Lord’s and we see a further dismissal of Compton in a photograph. At other times he would remove at least once and in most cases more often Joe Hardstaff (junior), R.E.S (Bob) Wyatt, Don Kenyon, Willie Watson, Ted Lester, Gilbert Parkhouse, Winston Place, Walter Hadlee, Cyril Washbrook, John and James Langridge, Allan Watkins, Doug Insole and Trevor Bailey, Freddie Brown, Arthur Milton, Reg Simpson, Len Hutton at Headingley in May 1953 after Hutton had scored 178, the young Ray Illingworth, Tom Graveney and Brian Close. This includes dismissing Insole and Bailey twice each in the same match, Somerset versus Essex at Bath on June 28 to 30, 1950. However Johnny was to tell the journalist Derek Naylor: “… one I never did snare was Wally Hammond. I should have had him the first time I bowled to him when he ought to have been stumped two yards down the wicket. I never got the chance again!” But Hammond was right at the end of his career by now. Cricket was only slowly emerging into a more professional atmosphere. Throughout the period Johnny was at Somerset there were still amateur captains. If an amateur captain happened to be a good leader the results were sometimes misleadingly good – but certainly not for Somerset in this period. They had eight official captains from 1945 to 1953 and three alone in 1948! Johnny Lawrence had an enormous influence at Somerset in his first-class career which lasted a decade. Let us look A first class career with Somerset