Lives in Cricket No 9 - JH King

Birkenhead Park was barely satisfied with his performances, initially passing a unanimous resolution to dispense with his services, a sub-committee being ‘formed to look at the question of filling the vacancy on the ground staff’, on which the captain Holden applied to Hawke for advice. Notwithstanding, the club eventually engaged him for the following season, and was rewarded by an improved record in both principal departments. His bowling was magnificent – 92 wickets at an average of 11.69, with a best performance of nine for 33 against Leyland when he took the first nine to fall; and he twice took seven, twice six, four times five and five times four wickets in only 22 innings, in none of which he failed to dismiss at least one opponent. His batting average, despite being nearly twice as high as his bowling, 23.00 for 368 runs, was not a huge improvement on the previous season, although his runs did include five innings superior to his previous season’s best, one of which was a magnificent 100 not out against New Brighton, the first by a professional for the club, when his seven for 82 gave him an outstanding match-double. Meanwhile Leicestershire was not enjoying a happy season. On 16 August there appeared a satirical piece in the Leicester Daily Mercury : ‘When the county cricket history of the present year of grace comes to be written nothing will be more remarkable . . . than the splendid consistency of the Leicestershire eleven. What matters it to Leicestershire whether the wicket be fast or slow, the weather wet or fine, their opponents weak or strong? “Our” cricketers . . . hold a conceited sort of disregard for the traditional uncertainty of the summer pastime, and have bravely set themselves out to prove one thing – that the result of a county match is a foregone conclusion when Leicestershire is one of the teams actively engaged. This course of action has its advantages. Close followers of the county, and local enthusiasts – if there are any left – are spared the suspense of waiting to the end of a match before knowing the result, and spectators at their various games stand in no fear of an attack of heart disease through the excitement of a close finish.’ It is not surprising, then, that King was called up midway through the summer; and in his first match, against Warwickshire at Grace Road, he top-scored for his side with his first half-century (56), ‘display[ing] more confidence than the majority’ of his team-mates. He was given the brunt of the bowling too and, despite the fact that he took none for 129 in Warwickshire’s then 24 Apprenticeship