Maurice Leyland: The Ashes hero who relished a challenge

Maurice Leyland averaged more in The Ashes than in other Tests, more in Tests than First-Class matches, and more in Roses matches than other domestic matches.

The quintessential Yorkshireman Maurice Leyland was born July 20, 1900. Abhishek Mukherjee looks at the career of a defiant batsman and a great character on the cricket ground.

Being born in the 1970s and growing up in the 1980s and 1990s in Calcutta, the concept of internet was alien to me during my formative years. I had heard Maurice Leyland’s name somewhere even then; maybe it was a random mention by someone in a stray comment.

As I grew up and found access to further details of the players on the internet I took to Maurice Leyland almost immediately. It was not because of his achievements alone. Despite an excellent career, there have definitely been greater batsmen and more intriguing characters than him.

Leyland, however, is definitely the greatest cricketer with whom I share my birthday.

However, leaving the birthday bias aside, it can be commented safely that the quality of Leyland’s batting depended on the opposition; however, it behaved in the exact opposite manner of the conventional batsmen: the tougher the opposition was, the more combative and dogged Leyland became.

The following table says it all:

Table 1: Leyland’s performance at various levels of cricket

	M	R	Ave	100s
Ashes	20	1,705	56.83	7
Other Tests	21	1,059	35.30	2
All Tests	41	2,764	46.07	9
Against Lancashire	39	1,746	42.59	4
Other First-Class Matches	606	29,150	39.93	67
All First-Class Matches	686	33,660	40.51	80

For an Englishman whose entire Test career spanned between 1928 and 1938 nothing could have provided a higher test than an Ashes contest — which was where Leyland had succeeded the most. He relished a challenge, yet another proof of which is his record in the high-profile Roses clashes.

It would be apt to quote RC Robertson-Glasgow on Leyland’s approach to batting at the highest level: “He was Horatius on the tottering bridge; Hector, who alone stood between Troy and destruction. He was born to rescue. But he is more dangerous than those who are stubborn or grim. He has something of D’Artagnan in him; there is a gaiety besides the simplicity and strength; seen in the slight list of the cap, and in a certain jauntiness and optimism of gait.”

In his obituary, The Times paid homage to his ability to rise to the occasion: “He was essentially a man for the big occasion, a batsman at his best in a crisis, and his favourite game was a Roses match or an Australian Test. England’s supporters often breathed a sigh of relief to see his burly figure purposefully striding to the wicket.” “No more courageous or determined cricketer ever buckled on pads for England,” wrote EW Swanton.

But where does Leyland stand among all batsmen in Ashes history?

Table 2: Batsmen with 20 or more Ashes Tests, sorted by batting average

	M	R	Ave	100s
Don Bradman	37	5,028	89.79	19
Herbert Sutcliffe	27	2,741	66.85	8
Ken Barrington	23	2,111	63.97	5
Steve Waugh	45	3,173	58.76	10
Maurice Leyland	20	1,705	56.83	7
Len Hutton	27	2,428	56.47	5
Allan Border	42	3,222	55.55	7
Jack Hobbs	41	3,636	54.27	12
Wally Hammond	33	2,852	51.85	9
Arthur Morris	24	2,080	50.73	8

As is evident from the table above, Leyland ranks third among all Englishmen and fifth among all batsmen in the history of Ashes — not a mean feat by any standards. Leyland is definitely the least familiar name in the list, and despite all that he sits comfortably with the others.

Adverse conditions often brought out the best in Leyland. Robertson-Glasgow wrote of Leyland: “His element was foul weather. He would disappear into the haze of Bramall Lane, where a sterner sort of game was being played under the name of cricket, and entrench himself among the sawdust and smoke and off-breaks and appeals, and do his raw, tough work in silence.”

He was a sight for the sore eyes. Despite his aggressive style, he was not a risk-taker by nature: that would have defied the Yorkshireman in him. He often found himself coming up the order with Yorkshire or England in trouble; the innings began with nudges and pushes, and once his eye was in and his side was out of danger he started bludgeoning them. Neville Cardus, a great fan of Leyland, wrote of batsman’s forceful strokeplay: “He put his nature into every stroke, and as soon as he had ‘got bowling where he wanted it,’ he didn’t merely hit or drive it — he walloped it.”

The spectacle of Leyland walking out to the middle was always a sight of reassurance for his side: the confident blue eyes under the perpetually tilted cap, the broad shoulders, the steely forearms, and the strong strides — they all spoke in unison of the man’s poise and determination to pull his side out of trouble.

It must not be forgotten that Leyland was an excellent left-arm spinner, and is credited by some with the invention of The Chinaman (though the credit is usually attributed to Ellis Achong). From 686 First-Class matches Leyland had picked up 466 wickets at 29.31 with 11 five-fors and a ten-for.

Having started his career bowling left-arm orthodox, Leyland shifted to the one that brought the ball into the right hander to provide Yorkshire — who boasted of Wilfred Rhodes, Roy Kilner, and Hedley Verity — with something different. He would probably not have got a bowl otherwise.

Wisden wrote in his obituary: “Whenever two batsmen were difficult to shift or something different was wanted someone in the Yorkshire team would say, ‘Put on Maurice to bowl some of those Chinese things.’ ” Kilner stated: “It is foreign stuff and you can’t call it anything else.”

The Yorkshire captain Cecil Burton went on record saying that “It was always thought in Yorkshire that the ball called ‘The Chinaman’ originated from Maurice. A left-arm bowler, he sometimes bowled an enormous off-break from round the wicket which, if not accurately pitched, was easy to see and to get away on the leg-side. In later days, laughing about this, he would say it was a type of ball that might be good enough to get the Chinese out if no one else. Hence this ball became Maurice’s ‘Chinaman’.”

The trio of Leyland, Verity, and Bill Bowes turned out to be a nuisance for the opposition batsmen. They worked as a trio, often plotting devious plans and executing them to perfection to dismiss one batsman after another. Despite his impressive record with the ball and the fact that his teammates considered him a successor of Rhodes Leyland perpetually underestimated his own bowling — often claiming “I’d love to bat against myself”.

Leyland was one of only three men to have scored 25,000 runs and have taken 400 wickets for Yorkshire — the others being the legendary Wilfred Rhodes and George Hirst. With 61 hundreds Leyland stands fourth among all Yorkshiremen after the three legends Herbert Sutcliffe, Geoff Boycott, and Len Hutton.

He was also an outstanding fielder, specialising in the deep. Wisden wrote that “he covered a tremendous lot of ground, picked up cleanly and returned perfectly, first bounce to the wicket.” He took 246 catches from 686 First-Class matches — a commendable feat by an outfielder.

Despite his intrinsic combative Yorkshire self, Leyland was an amicable personality and never missed a chance to miss out on a joke. As Cardus had observed, “There was a twinkle in his eye and there was a twinkle in his bat, no matter how grimly and straight it may occasionally be obliged to defend a difficult situation in Yorkshire.” Leyland’s one-liners often had the dressing-room in splits. Few people are born with the gift of laughing at their own selves, and Leyland was one of them.

The Cardus-Leyland admiration was a mutual one, though: Leyland had immense respect for the author. When Leyland was on a rendezvous with Cardus and Arthur Mitchell the latter said “I don’t like thy writing, Mr Cardus: it’s too fancy.” Leyland immediately retorted with “Well, that’s more than anybody could say about thy batting.”

Recollecting a Bill O’Reilly over Leyland once said: “First he bowled me an off-break; then he bowled me a leg-break; then his googly; then a bumper; then one that went with his arm.” The listener counted and obviously mentioned about the sixth ball. A nonchalant Leyland responded: “Oh, that; that was a straight ‘un and it bowled me.”

Leyland had stood firm in the iconic Melbourne Test of 1936-37 after England had been set an impossible 689 to win the Test. Wickets fell at regular intervals and Walter Robins eventually walked out to join Leyland at 196 for six with a few minutes to go for stumps. Soon afterwards Robins hit the ball to cover and attempted a single.

Leyland calmed his partner with possibly his most famous words “Wait your hurry, Mr. Robins. We shan’t get ’em all tonight.” As things turned out, the pair added 111 in 65 minutes; Robins eventually fell for a 68-ball 65 while Leyland was left stranded for a 212-ball 111 as England lost by a thumping margin of 365 runs.

On another occasion Leyland was manning the outfield in a high-intensity Roses match at Old Trafford. A shot off Bowes went high in the air — and after a few seconds of suspense Leyland grassed the chance amidst a lot of jeer and boos from the Lancashire crowd. A voice from the crowd shouted “Nay, I could have caught that in my mouth.” Leyland immediately turned towards the man and responded “Aye, and if my mouth was as big as thine, so could I.”

He never seemed to run out of these one-liners. Getting out caught to a horrible delivery wide of the wicket he commented “Well, now, I don’t get a lot o’ practice against that sort.” When asked whether he was tensed while batting he famously responded with “Of course I’m nervous. There you are, out in t’ middle an there’s 30,000 people all knowing better what to do than you do.”

Early days

The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography mentions that Leyland’s first name was originally registered as Morris, but his parents later changed it to the homophone by which the world knows him today.

The son of Ted, a groundsman who was a regular in the Lancashire League (and is usually credited for discovering Verity and recommending him for the trials), Maurice made his way quickly through school cricket and made his debut against Essex at Southend-on-Sea in 1920 and scored ten. It was the first First-Class match he saw.

Thereafter he played for Yorkshire only sporadically, mostly when the first team players rested, injured, or away on national duty. He got only five matches in 1921 but got a longer stretch in 1922. He did not impress with the bat but the breathtaking outfielding of the youngster caught the eyes of many.

Despite having scored 345 runs at 15 from 20 matches with a single fifty Leyland earned his Yorkshire cap in 1923. He played 35 matches that season and scored seven fifties, and finally got going the next season with his first First-Class hundred. It had to be a Roses match: he top-scored at Old Trafford with 133 and less than three weeks later he followed it up with 100 not out against Hampshire. Leyland’s career had taken off.

He scored three hundreds in the 1925 season and two more in 1926, scoring more than 3,000 runs over the two seasons. He toured India in the winter of 1926 and did a decent job. He scored 1,625 runs at 41.66 in 1927 but the one major season that would put him in the contention of a Test squad remained elusive.

1928 was that season. Leyland batted brilliantly throughout the season, scoring 1,783 runs at 54.03 with 5 hundreds including an emphatic 247 against Worcestershire. With Yorkshire a bowler short due to the unfortunate demise of Kilner in April Leyland sent down over 500 overs in the season (he had bowled just above 150 overs in his entire career till then) picking up 35 wickets at 34.20. The performance made him a Wisden Cricketer of the Year and suddenly Leyland was a contender for the all-rounder’s slot in the Test side.

Despite his efforts Yorkshire could not clinch the title as Lancashire completed their hat-trick (Yorkshire had won the Championship four times on the trot before that). Leyland had vowed to bring the title back to his county.

Test cricket

His excellent all-round performances earned Leyland a spot in the last 1928 home series against West Indies at The Oval. Leyland picked up George Challenor with his left-arm spin but was bowled by Herman Griffith for a duck. He was not needed to play any further part in the Test.

Despite his failure at The Oval his domestic performances earned him a spot in the Ashes squad next season. This caused protests in South England, especially in Kent, as Leyland’s inclusion cost Frank Woolley, darling of the press, a place. A Kent fan even called Leyland a “leaden-footed cart-horse”.

Leyland began the Australia tour well, scoring 114 in his second tour match against South Australia at Adelaide Oval and yet another 114 against Queensland at Brisbane. With England having secured an unassailable 4-0 lead Leyland made his Ashes debut in the fifth and last Test at Melbourne.

Leyland walked out to bat at No. 7 and added 140 with Patsy Hendren for the sixth wicket. He then brilliantly shepherded the tail (there was no hurry, this being a timeless Test) and added 42 for the ninth wicket with Maurice Tate and 49 for the last wicket Jack White. Leyland was last out for a 330-ball 137 with 18 boundaries and England piled up 519.

Leading by 28 England ran into trouble at 131 for 6; this time Leyland forged a partnership of 81 with Maurice Tate and guided his side to 257. Leyland remained unbeaten on 53 from 138 balls. The Test was lost due to an excellent unbeaten 83-run partnership between Jack Ryder and a youngster called Don Bradman, but there was no doubt that Leyland had established himself rather firmly in the Test side.

He played his first full series against South Africa at home in 1929 scoring 294 at 42 after scoring 73 and 102 in his first Test at Lord’s. He failed in the Ashes series next year (where Bradman announced himself to the world rather emphatically) but after a decent tour of South Africa he was selected for the infamous Ashes of 1932-33.

He had a great time in the 1932 domestic season, scoring 1,980 runs at 52.10 with 6 hundreds and picking up 23 wickets at 20.86.Yorkshire won their second consecutive Championship that season — and would go on secure a hat-trick as Leyland would score 2,317 at 50.36 with seven hundreds and pick up 37 wickets at 28.13 in 1933.

Playing against Essex that season Sutcliffe and Leyland put up an uncharacteristically astonishing display of strokes putting up 102 runs in 6 overs when Ken Farnes and Morris Nichols applied a leg-theory of sorts against them — perhaps exasperated at Sutcliffe and Percy Holmes’ 555-run partnership against them at Leyton in the earlier match.

The strategy did not work as both Sutcliffe and Leyland hooked them brutally; perhaps it would have worked if Essex had a faster bowler in their squad. Douglas Jardine’s England did, however, as the Australians would find out at their peril in the Ashes that winter.

Leyland did not really set the world on fire in the Bodyline series. However, he played two brilliant innings under enormous pressure. There was a mass uproar after Jardine’s Bodyline theory, and the onus was on the batsmen to perform. Leyland’s performances began after Larwood hit Bill Woodfull and Bert Oldfield, though.

With the series levelled 1-1 Australia reduced England to 30 for four on the first morning at Adelaide Oval. Leyland then top-scored with a 190-ball 83 and added 156 with Bob Wyatt to help England reach a respectable 341. After a 119-run lead had been secured Leyland made another crucial 96-ball 42 before Larwood and Gubby Allen secured a massive victory for England.

With England 2-1 up in the series Australia fought back, eventually setting a target of 160 at The Gabba. What ensued was a tremendous battle of nerves between the English batsmen and the Australian spin duo of Bill O’Reilly and Bert Ironmonger. Sutcliffe fell early and it took Jardine 112 balls to score a painstaking 24. The usually fluent Wally Hammond, too, was made to struggle for his runs: he managed 14 from 75.

Leyland, however, emerged the victor of the epic battle that lasted for a full 79.4 overs. Eddie Paynter eventually provided the finishing touches with 2 fours and a six, and Leyland remained unbeaten with a 235-ball 83 after 4 hours of endurance against the two masters of spin.

The 1934 Ashes

By this time Leyland had established himself in the side quite firmly. However, he did not enjoy the same stature as the others in the star-studded England batting line-up — possibly he had not really dominated a series. The 1934 Ashes changed that.

Australia clinched the Ashes 2-1 but Leyland stood firm, battling it out against the likes of O’Reilly, Clarrie Grimmett, and Tim Wall. He scored a 252-ball 109 at Lord’s (where Verity picked up 15 for 104), followed it with a 309-ball 153 in his next innings at Old Trafford, batted for 186 minutes to score 49 not out to save the Headingley Test, and finished the series with an emphatic 171-ball 109 at The Oval.

Leyland finished the series with 478 runs at 68.28; all his three 50-plus scores had been converted to hundreds. He easily topped the batting chart for England in terms of both runs and averages, and England managed to score only two other hundreds that series.

Yorkshire gave him a benefit match that season against Nottinghamshire at Headingley. The match yielded £3,600.

After failing miserably in the West Indies tour Leyland found form against South Africa and India at home before heading for Australia for the 1936-37 Ashes.

Final years

Once again he was in sublime form — and England dominated the series as long as Leyland was among the runs. Walking out to bat at 20 for 3 at The Gabba Leyland was back to his rescuing best, adding 99 with Charlie Barnett and 90 with Joe Hardstaff Jr. He eventually fell for a 290-ball 126 (and scored 33 in the second innings) as England reached 358 and England won by a huge margin thanks to Voce’s 11 for 77.

He scored 42 at Sydney as England won by an innings and then a valiant 111 not out (mentioned above) as Bradman turned the Test and the series on its head with his famous 270. England lost the last 2 Tests and became the only side to lose a series after being 2-0 up.

Time was running out for Leyland as a Test batsman, more so because a group of young batsmen had come up to play for England.  It did not help that he broke a finger and missed out a chunk of the 1937 season. He came back fully fit in 1938 and played for Yorkshire like the Leyland of old days.

Not only did he score 5 hundreds that season but he also picked up 63 wickets at 19.63 with 2 five-fors. Playing against Hampshire Leyland picked up a career-best 8 for 63 to skittle out Hampshire for 188. He eventually earned a call-up in the final Test of the Ashes at The Oval with England trailing the series 0-1.

The Test turned out to be a historic one. Leyland joined Hutton after Bill Edrich was removed by O’Reilly, and the two batted till stumps on Day One, adding 318 for the second wicket with both of them past 150. Leyland fell for a 438-ball 187 — his best Test score — on Day Two after a mammoth 382-run partnership in 381 minutes.

During an interval that punctuated the humongous partnership Cardus went up to Leyland and complained “Even you, Maurice, even you won’t hit the ball and give us some cricket.” As always the Yorkshireman was quick to respond: “Hey, wait a minute, Mr Cardus, wait a minute — tha’ must remember that ah’m playing for me place in team!”

The partnership was the highest for any wicket for England at that point of time and still remains the second-best after Peter May and Colin Cowdrey’s 411 against West Indies at Edgbaston in 1957. It also remains the highest partnership for any wicket against Australia.

Hardstaff jr also scored 169, thereby making it the first occasion where three batsmen crossed 150 in the same innings and England scored a world-record 903 for seven, the declaration coming only after Bradman’s injury. Oh, did I mention that Hutton registered a world record score of 364?

Leyland picked up Bill Brown, the top-scorer, to finish Australia’s first innings before they slumped to a humiliating defeat by an innings and 579 runs. Unfortunately it turned out to be Leyland’s last Test.

War and final years

Leyland went on war duty after helping Yorkshire to another hat-trick of Championship titles with 1,238 runs at 39.93 and 23 wickets at 30.39. He was a Sergeant Instructor and was later promoted to a Lieutenant — but often came back to play in the Bradford League when not on duty.

Even at 45 his enthusiasm for the game did not wane: he came back in 1945 to play a one-off Roses match and then went on to play the entire 1946 season. He scored only 632 runs at 21.06 but bowled beautifully: he picked up 4 for 30 to rout Sussex and went a step further when he took 7 for 68 to demolish Warwickshire. Yorkshire won both matches comfortably and went on to clinch yet another title. It was Leyland’s twelfth Championship title as a player.

He played 2 matches in 1947 and another in 1948 before finally calling it quits.

Later years

In 1949 Leyland was among the first group of former professional cricketers to be awarded honorary MCC membership. He took to coaching on retirement and was appointed Chief Coach of Yorkshire CCC in 1950 along with Mitchell. The two of them often worked as a pair: Leyland was the kind one while Mitchell dished out a Spartan treatment to his students. Some say it was due to their contrasting characters. Others, however, think that it was a well-planned Good-Cop-Bad-Cop strategy.

Leyland and Mitchell went on to coach many famous players, the most famous of whom were Boycott and Dickie Bird. Bird recalled Leyland’s advice on how to handle leg-breaks: “When playing leg-spin always push for the googly. If it turns out to be googly you’ll play it. If it’s the leg-spin you’ll miss it, and with a bit of luck it’ll go through to the wicket keeper.”

He continued coaching till 1963 before he had to retire due to severe illness. The ground at St George’s Road, Harrogate had new gates erected at its north-eastern corner that were named after Leyland, who, according to Steve Draper, was “the greatest cricketer Harrogate has yet produced”.

Despite suffering from Parkinson’s disease he did not end his relationship with Yorkshire and continued to attend the matches at Harrogate. He passed away in a hospital in Knaresborough on New Year’s Day, 1967.

The Cricketer Spring Annual of 1967 wrote in his memory: “Men of principle can be harsh and stiff-necked; amiable companions can be anything but men of principle. But once in a generation comes a man whose unchallenged integrity and humorous friendliness are in perfect balance. Such a man was Maurice Leyland, whose epitaph — and he would have made a rare joke of it — might link with that of Samson’s lion: Out of the Strong came forth Sweetness.”

(Abhishek Mukherjee is a cricket historian and Senior Cricket Writer at CricketCountry. He generally looks upon life as a journey involving two components – cricket and literature – though not as disjoint elements. A passionate follower of the history of the sport with an insatiable appetite for trivia and anecdotes, he has also a steady love affair with the incredible assortment of numbers that cricket has to offer. He also thinks he can bowl decent leg-breaks in street cricket, and blogs at http://ovshake.blogspot.in. He can be followed on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/ovshake42)

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