Lives in Cricket No 6 - Bill Copson

one being abandoned without a ball bowled. They were also heavily defeated in their one other first-class game, versus the Indian tourists. Copson was one of two survivors of the effective pre-war bowlers, the other being George Pope. He was ably supported by Cliff Gladwin who, in his first full season, shared the new ball with Bill on occasions and took over one hundred wickets. Still opening the bowling, though he had a variety of partners, Copson played in twenty four Championship games and took five or more wickets in an innings on five occasions. He finished with 93 first-class wickets in the season at an average of 20.47. He did not bowl sufficiently well to be asked to play in the two Test Trial matches, despite the professed wish of the selectors to ‘view’ as many players as possible. Thus he did not come anywhere near selection for the Test Matches against All-India, nor was he ever a serious contender for the tour to Australia which had been arranged, at fairly short notice, for the ensuing winter. Fast bowlers chosen for the three home Tests were Bowes, Voce, Pollard and Gover. Two of these, Pollard and Voce, were chosen for Australia, together with the undoubted success of the season, Alec Bedser, who performed the exceptional feat of taking twenty two wickets in his first two Tests. Bill did on occasions display his old fiery and hostile bowling form, notably in the match against Sussex at Abbeydale Park, Dore, a suburb of Sheffield, a new venue for the county and actually located in the neighbouring county of Yorkshire. 31 In later years Yorkshire used this ground for a number of their home games. Copson took six wickets for forty nine runs in the visitors’ second innings, his best statistical return of the season. * * * * * The 1947 season is of course, best remembered for the exceptional batting of Denis Compton and Bill Edrich, both of whom broke the record aggregate of 3,518 runs in a season made by Tom Hayward in 1906. Compton also made eighteen first-class centuries, overtaking the sixteen made by Jack Hobbs in 1926. It was a summer of almost unbroken sunshine and attracted large numbers of spectators to the many exciting games played. It came Final First-Class Seasons 67 31 Dore was part of an area in the ‘traditional’ county of Derbyshire which was transferred to the City of Sheffield, and thence to Yorkshire, in the 1930s.