Lives in Cricket No 8 - Ernest Hayes

country his excellent 113 included one 6, two 5s, thirteen 4s, four 3s and eight 2s.’ The innings earned him a recall to the first eleven for the Sussex match at The Oval. Although he again made insignificant contributions with the bat, on what he calls a ‘perfect pitch’ – Hayes is not alone in the reporting of his own cricket, that he does his batting on stickies and his bowling on shirt-fronts – he won the match for his team with the first five wicket return in his first-class career, five for 22. The Daily Mail and Morning Leader both headlined his match-winning performance, and the The Times said that Hayes ‘with his slow leg-breaks, bowled magnificently.’ Earlier in his career the South London Mail reported his bowling ‘fairly fast’, but this method had by now almost disappeared. One of the Sunday papers reported: ‘The excellent bowling of Hayes towards the end of the Sussex match on Saturday afternoon must have greatly pleased the captain, K.J.Key who, I believe, takes a keen interest in his cricket. That Hayes is going to develop into a good all-round player for his county seems manifest from his recent form. As a batsman he was full of promise, and almost assured of his position in the team.’ The Pall Mall Gazette was similarly complimentary: ‘Then the game came to an end in a startlingly rapid fashion, Hayes taking the last four wickets; at 229 Butt and Tate were both caught and bowled; and at 231 Humphreys was caught at short-leg, Surrey winning the match at twenty-five minutes past four by 73 runs. Hayes had a remarkable analysis, five wickets falling to him in thirteen overs at a cost of only 22 runs.’ And the Surrey poet, Albert Craig, whose poetry at times makes McGonagall look like Tennyson, supplied the appropriate verse: Good Old Surrey And shall I close without a word of praise To Surrey’s future Hayward, Ernie Hayes. Modest in action in each word and look, How well he did the work he undertook . . . C.B.Fry had little doubt about Hayes’ potential, writing in his Book of Cricket : The Surrey Club has for some years past pursued a wise and provident policy with regard to its young cricketers. Every Surrey Pro 24