Lives in Cricket No 9 - JH King

record score of 472, his 14 maidens out of 54 overs indicated a promising steadiness. For the next match, against Derbyshire, he shot up the order, from No.8 to No.4, and a couple of twenties showed his new confidence and helped his county to its solitary victory of the season. In a further three matches he achieved little, but had the satisfaction of taking his first wicket, having G.R.Baker caught by C.J.B.Wood at Old Trafford, a ground with which he was familiar from two matches with Birkenhead Park. The Leicester Daily Mercury opined that it was ‘long overdue’. King’s batting average had now jumped to 16.90, which was much better than it sounds, for Knight was top with only 20.00 in a summer of variable weather which on only rare occasions justified the contemporary advertisement of Brooke Bond’s tea as the beverage for ‘the sultry summer afternoon’. Birkenhead Park was, understandably, in no doubt about engaging him for a third season, and despite a slight slip in batting average to 20.30 he once more excelled in bowling with 77 wickets at 12.71, making Ormskirk in particular suffer with eight for 40 and eight for 20 in the two games. He further enjoyed himself in the sort of Apprenticeship 25 Leicestershire’s side of 1897 was thirteenth of fourteen in the Championship. Standing (l to r): W.Tomlin, A.Woodcock, F.Geeson and J.H.King. Seated: C.J.B.Wood, F.W.Stocks, C.E.de Trafford (captain), A.D.Pougher and A.E.Knight. On the ground: J.P.Whiteside (wk) and S.Coe.