Lives in Cricket No 8 - Ernest Hayes

also took three wickets. It was doubtless with some relief, however, that he was able to record: ‘The ‘crocks’ of the Leicestershire team being fit I retired from the first-class arena this season & I may say that this absolutely finishes my first class cricket career.’ 1927 His first-class career now definitely over, he continued as coach to Leicestershire and played in a couple of Minor Counties matches, though with only limited success. He records that he is satisfied that his previous efforts are showing good results and the younger players showing some form. Norman Armstrong and H.C.Snary were now regulars in the side. An article in the Daily Dispatch analysing the state of English cricket warned against the dangers of complacency in the wake of regaining the Ashes the previous summer, identifying three faults – an almost total absence of fast bowling, although the Larwood-Voce era was not very far away; an exaggerated attention given to what was then called ‘swerve’ at the expense of spin and accuracy; and a reluctance on the part of batsmen to hit over-pitched bowling. The half-volley was treated with as much respect as the length ball. To objections that it was impossible to hit modern ‘swerve’ bowling, the example of Ernest Hayes was cited: Last season an old player named Ernest Hayes, aged 50, came out after six years of retirement to bat for Leicestershire against Nottinghamshire. He promptly proceeded to hit up 99 – and even then they had to run him out to get him out – and he did not make his runs by step-in-front-of-the-wicket and deflect-the-ball-to-leg methods. He played exactly as he played before the swerve became a fetish and the googly a bogie. In brief, he hit in the good old way. To my mind the innings was the most significant of the season. ‘It does show up the young ‘uns,’ some one said to me at the end of it. It should have done more than that. It should have put the young ‘uns’ on the right path again. It was perhaps a tribute to Hayes’ coaching that George Geary and Ewart Astill were selected for the MCC tour of South Africa that winter. Leicestershire 105