100 Years Ago: 21 September 1924

Middlesex’s rollercoaster season

1924 County Review

MIDDLESEX — 2nd place

Middlesex started the season well, sagged for a while, and then came back to challenge Yorkshire strongly for the championship title, only to falter at the last against Gloucestershire and Surrey.  It was a good recovery from eighth position last year, when bowling was the main weakness, due to Nigel Haig’s inability to bowl and Jack Hearne’s injured hand for much of the season.  This time both were able to bowl and did so very well, although perhaps Haig was overbowled at the expense of his batting.  Jack Durston after a poor start to the season came good.  Gubby Allen was inconsistent, but at his best he was superb, as in the victory over Somerset at Weston-super-Mare.  Generally speaking, the Middlesex bowlers were not as well suited to the soft, damp pitches as the Yorkshire attack, but on hard pitches they were at least their equals.

They were also a strong batting side that scored runs well down the order, and they were regarded as more attractive to watch than Yorkshire, with Patsy Hendren at the centre of things, although Hearne generally preferred quiet accumulation.  Horace Dales shed his dour image and became a fine attacking batsman as he is in club cricket, particularly on slow pitches.  Greville Stevens did good all-round work.  Harry Lee did not have a very good season, and nor did Frank Mann, who occasionally hit brilliantly, but was not suited to slow pitches.  The season was marred by the dispute with Yorkshire, and at one time there was talk of Middlesex refusing to play Yorkshire next season, but fortunately cooler judgment and diplomacy prevailed on both sides.

OBITUARY: JAMES BUSH

James Bush, who was the first Gloucestershire wicket-keeper in first-class cricket between 1870 and 1890, the heyday of the Grace brothers, has died at the age of 74.

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.