Lives in Cricket No 9 - JH King

score by a colleague in either innings was 33, did he for the last time of so many times shine for his faithful followers like Portia’s lamp in the inspissating gloom. Two weeks after the match against Glamorgan came the crowning accolade from his county: Major Fowke had strained a tendon in his leg and the captaincy for the match at Old Trafford was entrusted to King. Although victory eluded him, the match until the last two hours was hard fought and very evenly balanced, his judgements were sound and he did not disgrace himself with 29 and 21 when neither team managed more than Leicestershire’s total of 247 in an innings. The local sports paper commented that it was ‘an honour which one was glad to see him enjoy, as a fitting incident in a long and distinguished career’. His last match was appropriately against Yorkshire on August 5 to 7, appropriately because he played altogether 55 times against Yorkshire, ten more than against any other county. Rain interfered and the match was abandoned when Geary was out after a light-hearted century stand with Astill in the second innings. So King, due to bat next, had to be content with ending his career lbw b Macaulay 11; his consolation, if he needed one, was that he had helped his side to a narrow first-innings lead over its inveterate and formidable foes. His last bowl had been three weeks before, two overs for six runs at Coventry. It was his decision to retire. He missed his county’s last six games. If he had played in these and in four earlier ones he would probably have reached 1,000 runs again, for he was only 227 short of that figure; but he had made only 137 in his last ten innings for Leicestershire, interspersed admittedly by his last half-century, a score of 61 (his share of a 150 partnership with C.H.Titchmarsh) in his last representative match, for MCC v Oxford University at his beloved Lord’s. It was time to go. Nevertheless, there was still one more personal achievement accomplished this season. In late July he appeared in a friendly two-day game against Durham at Sunderland which has given him today an unique record: he is the sole Leicestershire cricketer to have played for or against all the twenty counties that have taken part in first-class cricket, for he had represented his own county against the other sixteen playing in the 1920s, had appeared in a few matches against London County in the first decade of the twentieth century and had scored a century for MCC in a 110 Nestor