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

62 Under-15 XI, they had scored 202 in partnership – Barnfield 161 and Bowes 48.) In the very next match, against King’s School Worcester, Barnfield scored another century, 101 not out, and led the recovery after a bad start. By scoring two centuries in successive innings, he equalled the feat of WK Wyatt in 1928; however, KES were unable to defend a total of 164 for nine declared, losing by three wickets. Trent College were dismissed for 55 and the match was all over in three hours. Malvern were dismissed by Page, who took 7 for 51, and Rees, with 53 not out, led the side to a thrilling victory in a race against the clock. The one disastrous performance was a score of 38 for nine against Manchester Grammar School, on a rain-affected wicket: Page played a captain’s innings of 15. Nuttall took seven Common Room wickets for 38, a performance which must have given him great satisfaction. Cricket Week was interfered with by rain, but against the Gentlemen of Worcestershire, good batting by openers Page (24) and Bowes (47), plus 45 from Rees and 47 from Barnfield, enabled Page to declare at 179 for five. Page then took six wickets for 47 runs and the Gentlemen, 60 for six at one point, were all out for 122. In the last match, Nuttall took 5 for 26 to dismiss the MCC for 186; in reply, Page made his highest score for the School, 58, Bowes making 31 in support, but wickets then fell at regular intervals and the School finished nine runs short with the last pair, Nuttall and Taylor, remaining undefeated. Altogether, a fine season. Page was a good captain. Apart from being the leading bowler, he set a fine example in the field and made himself into an opening batsman. He played an important part in building up a very good side that was to stay together for the next two years. His total of 147 wickets for the School was more than that of any other bowler except OS Wheatley and DH Benson – plus of course J Manton’s astronomical total in the very different conditions of the late nineteenth century. Since then, the career totals of Wheatley, Benson and Page have only been exceeded by one other bowler. In 1964, only Page and Watts were missing from the 1963 side. MR Shenstone succeeded to the captaincy, and six matches were won and three lost. In three of the drawn games, the School were only a few runs short of victory. The season was perhaps not quite as good as the previous one, for while the batting was better the attack was not so penetrative. There was no spinner of the class of RCJ Page, though AM Paul’s off-breaks came good in the last week of the season. Added to this, Nuttall did not have such a good season as in 1963. Barnfield was inconsistent, and even though he averaged over forty, he only made four good scores. The strength of the side was the opening partnership of WR Sykes and JD Rees, who rarely failed to give the side a good start, despite Sykes being run out by his partner on a number of occasions. GK Rand, a hard-hitting batsman who batted second wicket down, made runs, as did PA Bowes, and on three occasions the two hundred was reached. In the first match of the season (after three matches had been cancelled due to rain) both Barnfield and Bowes topped fifty, and Bromsgrove were beaten by seven wickets. In the next match, against Wrekin, Barnfield made 90 out of a KES total of 186, but Wrekin got the runs in a race against the clock. There was a disappointing batting display against Denstone after Nuttall had taken 5 for 66. The match against King’s School Worcester, at Eastern Road, was dominated by batting, 448 runs being scored in five hours for the loss of eight wickets. King’s made 227 for two declared (CC Barlow 141 not out), and KES ended up six runs short with six wickets down. JD Rees held the innings together with