Lives in Cricket No 8 - Ernest Hayes

to join a touring party to India ‘partly as his secretary and partly to play cricket and coach where possible’. The Indian experience, while enjoyable and educational, was not a financial success, two people on whom Tarrant was relying failing to come up with the goods. Hayes records that the Maharajah of Cooch Behar, on whom Tarrant was depending to engage him as coach, had gone to England to seek treatment for brain trouble and died there. Ranjitsinhji had promised work at a college, but decided to stay in England. So, no coaching appointment, but an opportunity on the way out and back to win prizes of brooches, cigarettes and cigarette cases at bull board, deck quoits and deck tennis. The journey out was smooth, the journey back less so, storms in the Bay of Biscay delaying the arrival by two days. In between, however, there was the chance to play a bit of cricket and see something of the country. Hayes was particularly impressed by Eden Gardens in Calcutta, a very fine city, he thought, with: a magnificent open grass space for recreation called the maidan. There are miles of it and it is divided up amongst the different cricket, tennis and football clubs of the city. The Calcutta Cricket Club themselves have the finest ground situated in the Eden Gardens & here the turf is properly looked after and the wickets quick and good. The wickets on the maidan are rough and dusty the turf being of a loose kind. Tarrant and Hayes, with more time on their hands than they had anticipated, joined the Dalhousie Club. Matches were played on Sundays between 11.30 am and 5.00 pm, with an hour’s break for ‘tiffin’. It comes as little surprise, therefore, that there were few definite results. Nor is it a matter for astonishment, as in South Africa and perhaps slightly less so in the West Indies, that the Indians had their own clubs, such as Mahomedan Sporting and, rather curiously, Aryans. Winchester again: 1923 Re-appointed by Rockley Wilson at Winchester for the three months of the summer term, Hayes represented the staff against the College first eleven in 1923, a fact meriting a brief mention in the scrapbook, but a report of reasonable length in the College magazine, The Wykehamist . Hayes made 61 in a tight draw as the An Officer and a Gentleman – and a Bridegroom 96