Lives in Cricket No 9 - JH King

117 runs to his name in 225 minutes with 13 fours and was further rewarded by a collection of £6 11s 0d (Coe and Whitehead receiving £3 3s 0d each). In helping Leicestershire crush MCC at Lord’s by an innings and 153 runs, Knight (203) and King (128), on a much easier wicket, put on 291 for the third wicket, a county record until 1961. As to bowling, King performed superbly at Edgbaston to take seven for 55 and five for 64, the wicket being very bad for only the first Warwickshire innings. Against London County he achieved his statistically best-ever analysis in a second innings with seven for 32 and dismissed his future colleague J.J.Kotze twice, although the latter returned the favour when the South Africans visited Leicester. King was chosen for his only North v South game this year (curiously Knight had played for ‘Players of the South’ v ‘Gentleman of England’ the previous year). He justified his selection with 92, ‘hitting very cleanly and with excellent judgment’; and produced a watchful innings of the same score also for MCC against Derbyshire. In addition he took six wickets in the two innings and scored 44 and 60 for Mr G.J.V.Weigall’s XI v Cambridge University, and showed the right spirit for the occasion by getting stumped for six in the first of his five appearances at the Scarborough Festival. But it was another representative match that was destined to make his name resound throughout the cricketing world. From Journeyman to Master 54