Lives in Cricket No 8 - Ernest Hayes

As for his fielding, the press comments: ‘Trumper was grandly caught at short slip by Hayes off Hayward, the fieldsman falling on his chest to make the catch.’ And ‘Hill was run out from a magnificent return by Hayes. The left-hander had late cut Richardson and met his end going for a second run.’ In the Championship he took 31 catches: of fielders, only John Tunnicliffe, with 32, took more. Still playing occasional club cricket, Hayes again turned in an outstanding one-man performance for Honor Oak in a two-day match against Folkestone, following 72 and 201 not out with eight second-innings wickets in a 211-run win. 1903 The season was altogether a better one for Hayes; but it was another wet summer. He remarks, ‘This season, although we had bad wickets nearly all the time, proved to be by far the best I had up till then for I finished top of the Surrey county averages and came out top of the catching list for all England.’ He had 1,865 first-class runs at 34.53, including three hundreds and eleven fifties and the press were in agreement with his self-assessment of the season. His slip fielding, where he took most of his 41 catches, continued to attract admiring comments: ‘Hayes has been in great form in his position at first slip this season, and though he is not a Lohmann he is about as safe a man as we have at present.’ Wisden commented on the way he had increased the range of his strokes. The ‘lack of variety’ of three years earlier had now been superseded by the addition of the cut and the leg-side ‘draw’. One cutting says, ‘Always a powerful driver, he . . . greatly improved the variety of his strokes, and was unquestionably the most dangerous batsman on the side. He also fielded admirably at slip.’ After his 145 against Lancashire, the press reported: ‘This is distinctly his year. He is batting wonderfully well and can be regarded as the new Maurice Read. . . . What I liked about his batting was the versatility of his strokes. A big hitter cannot afford to get all his runs in one direction. Hayes drove hard, he cut hard, but he also cut the late ones with perfect repose, and none of his strokes were so impressive as the draw to leg, executed with Coaching in South Africa and then a County Stalwart 36