Lives in Cricket No 9 - JH King

short or otherwise. I confess that King was not always ready to respond to the call as one would have desired. I suppose he felt, as a boy assured me only to-day, that he would have responded all right, but “I should surely have been out!” One match at Nottingham in the early 1900’s I shall never forget. On the last day of the match, Leicester were some five or six hundred runs behind and had an innings defeat to avert. With an innings of 150 or so King stayed the whole day and determinedly saved us. Harry Whitehead had accompanied King to the wicket, and became so irritated at King’s refusal to run the long runs to deep extra cover that he proceeded to the far wicket to drag him out of his crease. How futile the effort or the appeal to the Sphinx! Poor Harry at last galloped back and even then nearly got home so long was the run. How frequently did he turn in his disgust to look at the mute column of his partner; how concentrated looked his malevolence; how long a time he was getting to the pavilion! I followed Whitehead and was as annoyed as later one was amused by the magnificent endowments, Mercury-like in quality, King gave to those Notts fieldsmen – even to Tom Wass. But the result! A magnificent draw entirely due to the skill and the character of King. 54 One calls to mind so many great performances of King, both for the county and at Lord’s, that one would almost write a history of the county during this past 25 or 30 years were one now to amplify them. A sustained spell of great bowling that enabled us to win one of our rare victories over Yorkshire at Leicester, and a dour innings on a fiery wicket against Worcester at Leicester – turning prospective defeat into a brilliant victory – stand out for me amongst so many invaluable efforts for his side. It is a great pleasure to think of these, a still greater pleasure to recall one’s long friendship with so fine a man. At long last one supposes even this superb physique will tire and turn into the lane that leads to the pavilion and to rest. No one player has done so much as he to feed the high tradition of Leicestershire cricket. Let us hope others may as happily follow him. 122 Albert Knight’s Appreciation 54 In the 1903 match at Trent Bridge, to which Knight refers, King scored 127, being engaged in a partnership of 241 in four hours and three quarters with Knight himself, who finished with 144 not out.