Lives in Cricket No 8 - Ernest Hayes

Surrey’s seven consecutive County Championships. Among the guests at that dinner were Sir Jack Hobbs, with whom the later part of his career had overlapped, and H.S.Altham, now rather better known than when they had been together on the staff at Winchester. Letters of condolence were sent to his widow by among others, Alf Carpenter of Leicestershire County Cricket Club; B.K.Castor, the Surrey secretary; K.T.Mason, the secretary of Honor Oak; Andy Sandham, Jack Hobbs and Herbert Strudwick, his playing colleagues. His cremation took place two days after his death, on Friday, 4 December, at Camberwell Crematorium in Honor Oak. He was survived by his widow and step-son Ted, who continued at the Paxton Arms after his death. * * * * * In his career with Surrey, Hayes as a batsman was almost always in the shadow of better-known colleagues. He contended with the popularity of Abel, the reliability of Hayward and the prodigious talent of Hobbs. To the South London faithful, he was perpetually a medioxumus , a deity of intermediate rank. His difficulties as a Test batsman confirm this status. But he fulfilled a special role for Surrey as a batsman: he often had the specific task of forcing the scoring along. Opponents rarely found it difficult to score runs at The Oval in his day, so that rapid run-getting was always a Surrey priority if matches were to be won, and his endeavours often cost him his wicket early in his innings. As a wrist-spin bowler, he had a handful of seasons in mid-career where he made an important contribution to the Surrey attack; oddly, some of his best years were cold, wet seasons, when conditions were at their most adverse to his methods. His exceptional talent as a slip fielder has perhaps been forgotten. Only Stewart père has taken more catches for Surrey. In the thirteen seasons from 1899 to 1911, Hayes was among the leading five catchers in the Championship in all but three. In his early career, when off-theory was king and when few captains put a fielder behind the wicket on the leg side, he had the job of chasing the ball down to that boundary – and it was a long way down to the Vauxhall End in those days. So he was a runner, too. 116 Homecoming