Lives in Cricket No 9 - JH King

counties below them, only one of which was actually met on the field. The side set a new record of four Championship wins and, in addition, secured victories over London County and the visiting South Africans. King raised his highest score twice with 131 against Hampshire at Southampton in June and, ‘batting correctly’, 143 against Derbyshire at Glossop the next month before scoring his maiden century at Leicester in August, 135 v London County with ‘smart off-drives at the expense of the doctor [Grace]’, who opened the bowling. But he probably gained most satisfaction in the last, drawn, match of the season at The Oval when, perhaps buoyed by having Abel caught for two when ‘the Guv’nor’ needed 12 for a world-record seasonal aggregate, he defied the great Tom Richardson to be unbeaten with 113 out of a mere 224 after his county had lost five wickets for 44 runs. He also had the pleasure of scoring his maiden half-century for MCC in a first-class match, 50 against Worcestershire: the previous year he had scored 50 and 59 v Minor Counties. His selection for Mr A.J.Webbe’s XI v Cambridge University showed the approval of his social superiors for a match in which he helped his side to victory with four for 39. Less happily he did show his susceptibility to ‘lobsters’, being bowled by Simpson-Hayward when well-set for 89 and then caught off him for a duck at Worcester: he was also slowed down by Jephson’s ‘awkward deliveries’, whereas against A.J.L.Hill’s lobs, after initially resisting temptation, he ran out to drive him to the boundary. Twice also he improved his best bowling analysis, on each occasion against the ‘Lacemen’, as the players of Nottinghamshire were known at the time, albeit on badly rain-affected pitches. At Trent Bridge he took seven for 70 out of a total of 249, which the home players presumably considered luxury since they had been abjectly subdued by Yorkshire for only 13 in their previous match. The bowler’s joy was not, however, unalloyed, for he was deprived of a hat-trick when Carlin skied the ball to mid-off only for Wood and Geeson to wait for each other as ‘the ball dropped harmlessly between them’. At Leicester King took six for 22 in the first innings and then, despite poor fielding by his side, seven for 51 to give him match figures of 13 for 73, which he was never to better. Since he had dismissed four batsmen in the second innings in the other game, he had a total of twenty-four ‘Lacemen’ victims in the season, but what will have given him greater pleasure as a loyal From Journeyman to Master 49