Lives in Cricket No 9 - JH King

reduced the Players to 62 for four and then 113 for five when King came to the wicket. In only 75 minutes he added 88 runs to the score with the Surrey man and then a further 83 with Rhodes. When he was finally seventh out, caught off Gilbert Jessop, he had batted somewhat over two and a half hours for a personal score of 104 out of 171. He had hit 14 fours and ‘batted with perfect confidence all through his innings, getting most of his runs by splendid off driving’. King was not called upon to perform with the ball, not even in the Gentlemen’s second innings – the Players had a strong bowling side and, as a replacement for Tyldesley, he was obviously being played as a batsman. Leonard Braund was largely responsible for the dismissal of the Gentlemen for a mere 171 and a deficit of 156 by three o’clock on the Tuesday afternoon. But the wicket was now at its worst and Hesketh-Prichard’s bowling ‘quite dangerous’. After an opening stand of 35, three wickets fell at 42, and at 49 King’s county colleague Knight, selected after his century the previous year, was struck on the left hand by Hesketh-Prichard, breaking a bone that kept him out of cricket for the next month. A.A.Thomson opines that the Hampshire bowler, a doughty hunter renowned for his moose-calling and a valorous soldier, ‘can hardly have done more skilful sniping during the war’. King, however, outdid even his magnificent first innings as he shepherded the tail to save his side. At close of play the total was 247 for eight, but J.T.Hearne could not stay with his partner the next morning and was out with only eight runs added, with King taking ‘out his bat for 109 – a wonderful display on such a wicket’, according to Wisden , and one whose value was highlighted by the fact that nobody else could contribute more than Rhodes, who managed a mere 31. King’s two-fold performance enabled him to equal the achievement of the amateur R.E.Foster, who had in 1900 also scored two centuries in this famous encounter: they were not joined in this select group until Duleepsinhji’s efforts in 1930, and in the whole history of these matches, at Lord’s, the Oval, Prince’s, Hove, Folkestone, Hastings and Scarborough, no other player achieved the feat, King being, then, left alone to uphold the professionals’ banner. The wicket, however, had rolled out in a way that surprised everyone; but, despite the fact that the Gentlemen managed to achieve a most unexpected victory with splendid and aggressive batting, the match became known as ‘King’s Match’ and the telegrams and letters poured in. The Manchester Guardian proclaimed his performance as one ‘which has eclipsed everything The Match of the Season 56