A History of Cricket at King Edward's School, BIrmingham

57 (off-breaks) and NR Tindale (medium pace). Harper made 56 and Mason 51 not out in a five- wicket victory. The eleven then lost a high-scoring match against Nottingham High School: Jones made 69 and Mason 67 not out in a KES total of 221 for eight declared, but Nottingham surpassed this total in spite of the efforts of MG Smith who took three of the five wickets that fell. The side then went through an indifferent mid-season patch, though Smith kept taking wickets consistently. However, starting with a comprehensive victory by 69 runs over RGS Worcester, who were dismissed for 76, KES proceeded to win four matches in a row. The two spinners, Smith and Page, played an important part. Smith took 5 for 81 against King’s School Worcester, who made 188; the KES batting, led by Harper (76) and Mason (70), passed the total for the loss of only four wickets. In the next two wins, Page took 5 for 14 against Trent (who were dismissed for 100) and 5 for 32 against Malvern; Green played a supporting role, taking seven wickets in these two games. There was a final victory over King’s School Chester in the last match of the season. In the Common Room match, JB Guy made his best score against the School, 110 out of 156 for nine declared, Page taking 5 for 41; KES ended up only 15 runs behind with nine wickets down, six of them to TG Freeman for 66 runs. B Lobb played for the Old Edwardians and took three wickets. Eight batsmen scored over a hundred runs – Mason 439, Harper 411, Green 315, Jones 312, Lamping and GP Simpson over two hundred – a good batting season. Green, besides his batting, took 31 wickets. The spinners, Smith and Page, both did a lot of bowling. Smith gained the doubtful distinction of conceding more runs in a season (940) than any other bowler; however, since he took 47 wickets, he ended up with the fairly respectable average of 20.00. Page took 33 wickets. Tracey, Evans and DR Holby enjoyed rather indifferent seasons. AR Packham, a young medium-pace bowler, played in some games. Lamping this season assumed the role of wicket-keeper. In 1961, several of the ‘old lags’, to use a favourite phrase of the captain, JC Mason, had departed – in fact, the School had lost as many as seven of the previous year’s team, including Jones, Harper, Green, Smith, Lamping, and Simpson. This revealed several promising new players, and the season of 1961 was an interesting one despite the record of three wins, seven draws and six losses. The strong point was the batting, led by JC Mason, who had another fine season: he was very consistent, scoring 434 runs in 16 innings (and leaving School at the end of the season with a career record of 1,272 runs). C Jordan, a new addition to the side, was rather unorthodox in method, using a lot of cross-bat strokes, but nevertheless had a good season. He scored 101 against Repton Second XI in quick time, and made fifties against King’s School Worcester and Malvern. He ended with 417 runs. PD Babb showed promise: he made 51 against the Common Room while Mason made 69, and the KES total of 231 for seven declared was the highest of the season. MS Tracey turned his talents to batting with some success. Reasonable totals were quite frequent, and the two hundred was exceeded twice more. Babb ended up with 212 runs and Tracey 247; Packham, Evans and RHC Jones, the wicket-keeper, also made useful runs on occasions. The problem was the weakness of the bowling. KES fielded out to several large totals, including 256 for three declared by Denstone, 253 for three declared by RGS Worcester, 235 for seven declared by Trent and 218 for five declared by Malvern. Mason, Packham and Tracey, the seam bowlers, were steady but nothing more. Page bowled twice as much as anyone else