Lives in Cricket No 6 - Bill Copson

Hammond and Hardstaff catapulting to the feet of the wicket-keeper Howard Levett and virtually sealed his selection for the tour. The Players finished the match on 63 runs for the loss of five wickets. Bill Copson could feel satisfied with his form in this match and that his name would have been very much still in the selectors’ minds. He maintained his skills in the next Derbyshire match, against the Indian touring team at Derby. The visitors had been heavily defeated in the First Test, at Lord’s, and had been going through rather a torrid time, having won only three of their first-class matches at this stage of the season, with two of these being against Ireland and the Minor Counties. Their game against Derbyshire, on 18, 20 and 21 July, was left drawn through an over-cautious declaration by the Indian captain, C.K.Nayudu. Copson took five of the Indian wickets in the first innings for 44 runs. When he dismissed V.M.Merchant in the second innings this was his one hundredth wicket of the season, the first time he had reached this milestone. 16 The bowling averages published in the Press a few days later put him second behind Hedley Verity, who was just short of 150 wickets. Derbyshire next travelled to Bramall Lane, Sheffield for an important Championship encounter with Yorkshire, at this stage fifth in the table. In a very keenly fought match they missed taking the first innings lead by just two runs, but unfortunately the whole of the second day’s play was lost to rain. Bill took six of his opponents’ wickets for sixty runs including the much valued ones of Len Hutton and Herbert Sutcliffe, the latter being bowled for a duck. A defeat at Ilkeston by six wickets by Nottinghamshire, close behind in the table where their batting let them down, was their first since mid-June: this brought the neighbours within striking distance in the table. Copson only took one wicket in this match. They won their next encounter, versus Essex at Chelmsford, by the narrow margin of twenty runs. Their opponents had been set 102 runs to win, but succumbed to an inspired spell of bowling by Tommy Mitchell, who took six of the last seven wickets to fall for only twenty five runs. 28 Annus Mirabilis 16 Copson himself had little use for these milestones. Will Taylor, the Derbyshire secretary once told him, possibly in this year, that he was approaching a hundred wickets for the season. He replied that he wasn’t bothered how many wickets he took ‘as long as the side is doing well.’