Lives in Cricket No 9 - JH King

King’s unbeaten 146 in four and a half hours of ‘clean driving’ and ‘crisp cutting’ allied with judicious defence begun in the ‘pronounced gloom’ of the second evening gave Skelding the opportunity to bring about a sensational victory by a mere eight runs. In his two matches against the ‘Sauce County’ King had a total aggregate of 330. His late-season form brought him selection for an England XI at Harrogate, where he top-scored with 45 first time round and again managed to evade Hirst, this time in both innings. Despite having a record similar to that of the previous year Leicestershire generally performed better in 1914. This was due in considerable extent to Geary’s emergence as a first-class bowler, but King’s return to form in this discipline must not be discounted and it helped to give his county ‘almost an embarrassment of riches in the matter of attack’. His average in Championship matches was 21.51 for 62 wickets, while he averaged over 14 runs better in his batting for well over 1,000 runs. As if determined to show that he was still a bowler with whom to be reckoned, he ran through the Essex second innings in the Maturity 87 The Leicestershire side of 1913, which finished fourteenth of sixteen in the Championship. Standing (l to r): S.C.Packer (secretary), unknown, A.Lord, F.Osborn, A.Mounteney, A.Skelding and G.Geary. Seated: C.J.B.Wood, W.Shipman, J.Shields (captain and wk), J.H.King and W.E.Astill. On the ground: W.N.Riley, H.Whitehead, W.Brown.