Lives in Cricket No 8 - Ernest Hayes

of his talents beyond batting, bowling and fielding. He had scored as a schoolboy, later designed a scorebook, was to become a coach and had acted as occasional emergency wicket-keeper. It was the end of an era in more ways than one. The ‘golden age’, the apogee of the amateur, the pre-eminence of characters such as C.B.Fry, Ranji and Lord Hawke would be diminished as European social structures crumbled and the weaknesses of a society based on inherited privilege would be exposed in theatres of war as ‘lions led by donkeys’ and be gradually eroded and slowly replaced by one where merit was of greater account. On the cricket field that established order had been challenged, albeit not overtly by men such as Hayes, Hobbs and Hayward. Certainly they remained socially inferior and a further half-century would elapse and another world war be fought before the snobbery of the amateur-professional divide was abolished and the artificiality of Gentlemen and Players discontinued. Notwithstanding that, however, Hayes was asked to captain the Players against the Gentlemen, led by C.B.Fry, at The Oval in July. The professionals won by 244 runs. Pelham Warner with the unquestioning arrogance of his class and generation commented: ‘Hayes, of Surrey, captained the professionals with sound judgment. As a general rule, professionals do not make good captains. Hayes is one of the exceptions.’ Rather more objectively, the Daily Telegraph reported: A feature of the Gentlemen and Players match at The Oval was the undemonstrative captaincy of Ernest Hayes. His management of the bowling was exceptionally tactful, though subjected to a dangerous temptation. He had many bowlers at his command, yet he was never induced to change for the sake of change. He made it quite clear to those interested in such matters why he took the steps that were so successful. . . . I have met Hayes on the cricket field in three continents during a large number of years and he has always struck me . . . as a most admirable judge of the game. One cannot say whether it is with him a matter of instinct or training or both, but in his sense of proportion he has few superiors and not many equals. Indeed in that respect he much resembles Wilfred Rhodes. Praise indeed. The Golden Age Ends on the Western Front 82