Lives in Cricket No 8 - Ernest Hayes

When Ernest Hayes died in 1953, local newpapers cheerfully announced HAYES OF ‘OBBS, ‘AYWARD AND ‘AYES IS DEAD. Historians have been kinder to his famous contemporaries, Jack Hobbs and Tom Hayward, but Hayes was one of many intelligent, down-to- earth professionals who underpinned the carefree amateurism of cricket’s ‘Golden Age’. Ernest Hayes Brass in a Golden Age KEITH BOOTH LIVES IN CRICKET ACS PUBLICATIONS £10.00 He played first-class cricket in four decades, took part in well over 500 first-class matches, scored a thousand runs in sixteen seasons and secured over 500 wickets with his leg-breaks. He was an outstanding slip fielder, many of his 607 catches off the bowling of the speed-merchants of his day. He won five Test caps and toured South Africa, Australia and the West Indies. Hayes kept scrapbooks of his achievements. Using this remarkable material, award-winning author Keith Booth here tells a tale which starts in the Old Kent Road and follows a man who became a commissioned officer in the Great War, who was wounded in action and was awarded the MBE. When his playing days were over with Surrey, he became a respected coach at Leicester, and played first-class cricket there when 49, before returning south to coach at The Oval. A man of great energy, he was still ‘in harness’ at his South London pub when he was 77.