Let us now praise famous men
Aug. 5th, 2005 08:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chickenfeetIt is not normally in my nature to be unduly kind to those unfortunates who hail from the wrong side of the Pennines but sometimes exceptions are warranted.
In delightful conversation with the lovely![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
blonde222 today i was driven to look up the highest score reached by a team batting fourth in a test match. It was England's 645-5 in the "timeless test" at Durban in 1939. Earlier in the day I had heard Geoffrey Boycott talking about having been at a ceremony to commemorate surely the greatest of England slow left armers, Hedley Verity, who would have been a hundred this year. I vividly recall Neville Cardus' description of him spinning the ball so hard it ripped a little piece out of the turf. It occurred to me that Durban must have been Verity's last test for war broke out before another was played; a war Verity did not survive. He was killed commanding an infantry company in the Italian campaign.
In delightful conversation with the lovely
blonde222 today i was driven to look up the highest score reached by a team batting fourth in a test match. It was England's 645-5 in the "timeless test" at Durban in 1939. Earlier in the day I had heard Geoffrey Boycott talking about having been at a ceremony to commemorate surely the greatest of England slow left armers, Hedley Verity, who would have been a hundred this year. I vividly recall Neville Cardus' description of him spinning the ball so hard it ripped a little piece out of the turf. It occurred to me that Durban must have been Verity's last test for war broke out before another was played; a war Verity did not survive. He was killed commanding an infantry company in the Italian campaign.
