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

87 promise by representing them in 1946, though so much had changed in his home county that they earnestly if correctly sought his services. “Luckily Lawrence, diminutive and balding, was a sportsman of the highest principles and he acknowledged Somerset’s claims upon him.” “Lawrence was an instant success in Somerset’s 1946 side, winning his county cap in his first season, scoring 968 first-class runs and taking 66 wickets.” according to Wisden . Johnny had done so well in that season that his all-round performance and his bowling acumen in particular had not gone unnoticed. Stephen Lawrence recalls a conversation he had with the late Peter Brayshay, the Leeds carpet distributor, a friend of Herbert Sutcliffe who said that Herbert Sutcliffe then an England selector had said that Johnny had been considered as a bowler for the Australia tour of 1946-7 but there was a fear that the very slowness of his bowling would be too much of a risk and that the Australian batsmen might have used their feet to him and hit him out of the park. Johnny – there is no doubt – would have loved the challenge but it was not to be. Neither Johnny Lawrence nor Donald Bradman would play in the fixture when Somerset played Australia in 1948 so Johnny never would get to play against the great Australian batsman – and that leaves our imaginations to ponder another ‘not to be’ or unanswered question in Johnny’s career and we have to wait till 1953 – after Bradman had retired – for Johnny’s only first-class match against the Australians. Even then we find that the great Keith Miller did not play in that fixture. The Somerset County Gazette commented on Somerset’s instability even in such a good season as 1946 and said it would have been better still if not for an indifferent start. It stated: “We have not yet seen the best of Johnny Lawrence, the new diminutive all-rounder from Yorkshire. He can sometimes bowl a googly to beat the best of batsmen and his first A first class career with Somerset