Lives in Cricket No 6 - Bill Copson

match. This is a very high figure compared with many other Test Match bowlers, but is, of course, over a very short period. He played two more matches this season, taking nine Worcestershire wickets in Derbyshire’s final Championship game and making, for him, a rare Festival appearance, this time at Kingston-upon-Thames for North versus South, when he failed to take any wickets. He finished the season with 89 first-class wickets. In the game against Essex at Chesterfield he added 62 runs for the tenth wicket with Cliff Gladwin, scoring an undefeated 38. This was his second highest individual innings in first-class cricket. This was also the match in which T.P.B.Smith of Essex, who normally batted rather higher up, scored 163 runs when batting at number eleven in the order, a world record in first-class cricket. Copson was one of six Derbyshire bowlers who toiled in very hot weather before Worthington finally captured Smith. * * * * * The 1948 season saw the much-awaited arrival of the Australians captained by Donald Bradman, who was making his fourth and final tour to this country. The story of their triumphant tour has often been told. The side remained unbeaten in all their matches and overwhelmed England by four games to nil in a very one sided rubber. The Australians played to packed houses at almost all their matches and generated a huge amount of interest. The Cricketer at one stage reported that the Australians ‘liquidated county sides in a most uncompromising fashion.’ Alas, Bill had a most disappointing season: he played in only nine Championship matches and missed the county’s match against the Australians at Derby. He had the misfortune to break a bone in his foot when batting in his county’s first innings against Somerset at Ilkeston on 5 June. He was absent from the side for six weeks. He had accomplished only one good performance prior to that date, when he took seven for 103 in Warwickshire’s first innings total of 398 in Derbyshire’s first home game of the season. Although it is unlikely that he realised it at the time, the seventh of these wickets, T.L.Pritchard bowled for six early on the second day of the match, was Copson’s thousandth in first-class cricket. The seven wicket return had earned him a place in the Test Trial which took place at Edgbaston on 2, 3 and 4 June, showing that the selectors were still Final First-Class Seasons 71