Lives in Cricket No 9 - JH King

eleven other double-centuries during the season, but none other scored on 52-year-old legs. 40 The home match against Kent was awarded him for a second benefit in recognition of his many years of loyal service. This time he was able to play and was rewarded with an unexpected victory, only the second for the county over these strong opponents in 25 attempts (with as many as 21 defeats). King himself had much to do with this triumph, making the second-highest score of 73 in the first innings, and then, when Benskin and Astill had skittled out the ‘Hoppers’ to give a lead of 172, top-scoring with 48 out of a poor total of 145 to ensure that the visitors’ final task was just a little too hard. Showery weather unfortunately so discouraged spectators that he made an actual loss on the match of £57 8s 8d, which made even more tasteless a cartoon by R.B.Davis in the local Sports Mercury the day after the conclusion of the match showing him with a fat cigar at a table loaded with bags and the unpunctuated doggerel verses: The King was in his Counting House Counting hoards of money He handled it with loving care And counts the prospect sunny. Nonetheless, contributions from other sources gave him a final profit of £388 16s 1d, no mean sum at the time for a professional from an unfashionable county. In 1924 he took his final three wickets. His last at home, to a catch by Geary, was that of J.M.Hutchinson, a nice coincidence for, though the Derbyshire batsman could not rival King’s years at Leicester, he was, historians believe, to create his own record of longevity as a first-class cricketer by dying in 2000 just two weeks shy of 104. King’s last victim, and a second nice coincidence, was another cricketer who like King played past the fiftieth anniversary of his birth, Glamorgan’s doughty J.C.Clay, trapped lbw for nought at Swansea at the end of May. 106 Nestor 40 He beat the record for longevity set just a few months before by Archie MacLaren. To this day only ‘Dave’ Nourse has ever scored a double-century in first-class cricket at a greater age, and King’s is still the record in English cricket. The full list of quinquagenarians’ first-class double-centuries is 219* by A.W.Nourse at 53 years/337 days for Western Province v Natal at Cape Town in 1932/1933; 205 by J.H.King at 52/78 for Leicestershire v Hampshire at Leicester in 1923; 200* by A.C.MacLaren at 51/29 days for MCC v New Zealand XI at Wellington in 1922/1923; 221 by J.B.Hobbs at 50/162 days for Surrey v West Indians at The Oval in 1933; 200 by C.K. Nayudu at 50/142 for Holkar v Baroda at Indore in 1945/1946.