Lives in Cricket No 8 - Ernest Hayes

was Surrey’s leading catcher in the field, with 24 dismissals, in a team whose fielding was thought by The Times to be very good. He was awarded his cap. Although now a first team regular, he also played in a couple of second eleven matches in the Minor Counties championship, now that first-class counties were permitted to enter their second teams in that competition. Perhaps his appearances in the seconds reminded him that his place in the first team was not altogether secure. Surrey won the Championship that year for the first time since 1895, a remarkable achievement, according to Anthony Meredith in The Demon and the Lobster , given internal dissension and the end-of-season resignation of captain, Kingsmill Key. The reason for his relinquishing the office was his disenchantment with the committee’s publicly-stated policy of playing as many amateurs as possible. The decision to pay the professionals their match fee when they were omitted to make way for an amateur did little to dilute the resulting disharmony. Against Kent, Key was instructed to play a young amateur, Hugh Dolbey in place of one of the six professionals – Abel, Brockwell, Hayward, Hayes, Lockwood and Lees. All six were or would eventually be Test cricketers. Dolbey was a useful club cricketer. In the event, all six professionals played, Dolbey’s sole Championship appearance being earlier in the season against Middlesex at Lord’s. The main thrust of Meredith’s comments appears to be correct, but on no occasion do any of the ‘big six’ appear to have been omitted to play Dolbey. Or perhaps Key just chose to disregard the instructions. The committee needed him more than he needed the committee. At any rate, he never played for Surrey again after the end of the 1899 season. And Surrey won the Championship only once in the next half-century. One remarkable match that summer was the one in which Surrey scored 811 against Somerset at The Oval, eventually winning by an innings and 379 runs. Abel batted through the innings for 357 not out, his score and the team’s both still club records. Hayes’ contribution was a modest 56 in a second-wicket partnership of 99. Coaching in South Africa and then a County Stalwart 31