HENDRENS_LAST_MATCH_OCT1995

"He made a duck in his first match for Middlesex, and a duck in his last, a memory which gave him as much pleasure as that of his 170 centuries."

JGLiverman`s recollections of Hendren`s last match.....

>From my own memories I would add a comment on Hendren`s last county match which I saw as a schoolboy of sixteen. The outstanding event was not the duck he scored in the second innings but the century he scored in the first. It was a three day match against, I think, Surrey. At Lord`s there was a capacity crowd of at least 15000, not unusual in those days before television and one-day matches, many of us coming to cheer and send a fond farewell to our idol `Patsy` - possibly the most popular cricketer who ever played though there can be no statistics to prove it. Throughout my cricket watching days in the thirties he was a regular century maker for Middlesex against other counties and against the touring sides. The only time he seemed uncomfortable at the crease was before he got off the mark, and he aimed to reduce this time to the minimum by stealing a single, usually by a cheeky prod to leg, off his first ball.

A speedy deep fielder in his youth - he had been a wing forward in first class soccer - Middlesex put him in the slips when he began to slow down in the field. In his last two years, however, his eyesight was not so keen, one or two slip catches went astray, and he returned to the deep field, probably at his own request , where he covered the ground with remarkable alacrity, held some fine catches, and was well placed to exchange jokes across the boundary with the crowd.

On this last county match in 1937 he strode to the crease to sustained cheers from the huge crowd and treated us to an entertaining innings of great distinction and showing remarkable energy and stamina for a man in his 49th year. He reached his hundred in little over two hours and the crowd rose to him. We gave him three cheers and sang `For he`s a jolly good fellow` and tears were running down many a furrowed cheek among supporters who had enjoyed his cricket for thirty years. We readily forgave him his all too brief second innings. Those who saw that last century, his one hundred and seventieth, now nearly sixty years ago, will treasure the memory.