Lives in Cricket No 8 - Ernest Hayes

1934 Jardine relinquished the captaincy and was replaced by Errol Holmes. Three new regular players came into the side, Laurie Fishlock and E.A.Watts from the professional staff; with Monty Garland-Wells as a new amateur, who joined Freddie Brown and Holmes to form the ‘Biff-Bang Boys’, intent on playing ‘brighter’ cricket. Surrey fell to eleventh position in the Championship table, although they won six matches, as in 1933. Jack Hobbs, Hayes’ old playing colleague, played a handful of matches for Surrey, bringing his illustrious career to a gentle close. 18 Hayes records, ‘This proved to be my last year’s County coaching & my connection with 1st class cricket but I hope still to get some match play with my old club Honor Oak so I am still 58 not out.’ He had developed something of a flamboyant life-style – at least in one respect. One newspaper reports that ‘Mrs Hayes often fetches him in a sports car painted the Surrey chocolate and bearing the name of the county on the bonnet.’ Perhaps inevitably with increasing age, he felt that ‘Fings ain’t wot they used t’ be’. In an interview with B.J.Evans, he says: It is a hard task discovering youthful talent because the boys of today don’t take the game seriously enough. They are brought to the ground in cars and their first thought is whether they will be taken home the same way. . . . There isn’t enough enthusiasm for cricket among modern youths, and some of the best of them turn to tennis because it is not such hard work. He was replaced for the 1935 season as coach by Alan Peach. Neither the Surrey minutes nor the annual report contain any appreciation or expression of thanks, so it must be assumed that his departure was with a whimper rather than a bang. However, his Times obituary as well as referring to him as ‘one of the finest batsmen of his day’ goes on to say that ‘he helped in the development of many players who later earned Test honours’. Even allowing for a De mortuis nil nisi bonum ethos, the compliment seems to be appropriate and well-deserved. There is no reason to believe that Hayes was dismissed by Surrey, but it cannot be said that he had brought about any great 112 Homecoming 18 At the start of his career, in 1905, the rhymester Albert Craig had described Hobbs as ‘Another Ernie Hayes’.