100 Years Ago: 13 September 1924

The Rest Outshine Yorkshire at The Oval

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Day 1

The Oval: The Rest v Champion County (Yorkshire)

Yorkshire Undone by Pace Bowlers

YORKSHIRE 166 (P Holmes 62, R Kilner 31, E Robinson 27; M W Tate 4/48, A E R Gilligan 2/52, J W H T Douglas 3/12). THE REST 165/2 (J B Hobbs 40, A Sandham 45, J W Hearne 29*, F E Woolley 46*).

Yorkshire as champion county played The Rest in the usual last match of the season at the Oval.  The Rest was composed entirely of players selected for the Australian tour, and the events of the day soon showed the truth of the belief that Yorkshire this season are little more than a shadow of their magnificent winning team of last year.  The pitch was slow and not altogether true; it was not seriously difficult for batting, but The Rest’s pace attack used it very impressively, especially Maurice Tate.  The weather was cold with some rain, and more threatening.  Yorkshire were weakened by the loss of Maurice Leyland with a thigh strain.

Tate alone found any life in the pitch, and he soon showed his world-class ability, having Herbert Sutcliffe caught at slip for 6.  Only Percy Holmes of the batsmen was in his best form, although Roy Kilner played well for a while, and his third-wicket partnership of 64 with Holmes was the best partnership of the innings.  When these two had been dismissed only Emmott Robinson defied the bowling for long.  The score at lunch had been 108 for three, but the afternoon session was disastrous for Yorkshire.  Gilligan removed Holmes, who batted for just over two hours, and Wilfred Rhodes in quick succession, and when he rested Johnny Douglas came on and finished off the innings with Tate.  The spinners were not used much and they caused few problems on this pitch.  The three pacemen shared the wickets, the odd one being a run-out of Edgar Oldroyd (6), who should have known better than to look for a quick single in the area patrolled by Jack Hobbs.

Hobbs and Andy Sandham played the Yorkshire bowling with care and never looked in trouble.  They put on 73 for the first wicket before Hobbs slashed a catch to backward point off Abe Waddington for 40.  Sandham stayed till the score had passed 100, and then the steady Jack Hearne was joined by Frank Woolley, who was the one batsman of the day to dominate the bowling with some fine strokes.  Yorkshire fielded superbly on the whole, saving many runs, though just before the close Hearne was dropped at slip and Woolley would almost certainly have been caught in the deep by Geoffrey Wilson had not Sutcliffe collided with him at the vital moment.  Soon afterwards bad light ended play for the day, with The Rest just one run short of taking the lead with eight wickets in hand.

Final 1924 season averages will be given after the current match between The Rest and the Champion County currently in progress, so there will be no posting tomorrow.

John Ward is an ACS member and a long-serving Zimbabwean cricket statistician. If you would like to contribute to this newsletter, please either respond to the email in which you received it, or leave a comment below.