Lives in Cricket No 8 - Ernest Hayes

a record-breaking one. 3 It was Surrey’s practice at about this time to have their younger players stand in lesser first-class matches, odd as it may seem to us now. He played in a couple of Minor Counties matches, also fulfilling his obligations as a younger professional. In August, against Devon at The Oval, when Holland took his place in the first team at Taunton, he scored 123, opening the batting in the second innings to set up a successful declaration. A regular county player, his appearances in club cricket were now rare. Unlike Julius Caesar (the original one, not the Surrey cricketer of the same name), he did not – at least in Brutus’ interpretation – scorn the base degrees by which he did ascend and he played for Honor Oak when he was available to do so, often with devastating effect. In that season, he batted three times and scored a century in two of his innings. Against Townley Park, he played virtually a single-wicket match, being last out for 111 out of a total of 170. He then took seven for 49, bowling through the innings to dismiss his opponents for a team total identical to his individual score. 1902 The summer was a wet one and consequently batting performances generally were not as good as in previous seasons. In the Championship overall, wickets came at over five runs cheaper than in 1901: 22.10 as against 27.55. Hayes’ own Championship return, 885 runs at 24.58, mostly from No.3, still suggests a run of the mill practitioner. However, he continued to attract complimentary press reports for his style of batting. His one century, 114, that year came against Middlesex at Lord’s and occupied just two hours. One of his press cuttings reports that ‘There are too many of the careful, plodding style of batsman in the Surrey team at present, and a man like Hayes at the wicket is always a pleasant relief. He and Crawford are the only two batsmen who can stir the Surrey crowd.’ Coaching in South Africa and then a County Stalwart 35 3 The age difference between Hayes and Carpenter was 45 years, 354 days. The only instance of a higher disparity in English first-class cricket known to Philip Bailey at CricketArchive occurred at Eastbourne in 1932, in the match Sussex v South Americans, when the age gap between Arthur Millward and Dick Richards was 50 years, 68 days. Strangely enough, Surrey arranged for W.S.Lees to stand in Surrey’s home match against Cambridge later in the 1901 season; the age difference between him and Carpenter, who stood in this match as well, was 45 years 37 days. There are no other English matches where the gap has exceeded forty years. Aficionados of this type of abstruse item should note, though, that the birth dates of many less well-known umpires have yet to be recorded by the game’s statisticians.