The following is a match report of a cricket match between The Stage XI and a team of politicians. It is difficult to believe now that the likes of the Foreign Secretary and the Lord Chancellor would find the time to play in a cricket match.

The team of politicians included Harold Macmillan (Foreign Secretary) and Viscount Kilmuir (Lord Chancellor) neither of whom had played cricket for some years. Although Viscount Kilmuir cheated somewhat by practising in the nets.

The Stage XI was captained by John Mills and included regular Lord’s Taverner cricketers like Leo Glenn, John Slater, Richard Attenborough and Mills himself. Douglas Fairbanks and David Niven were late cry-offs. Each team was ‘strengthened’ by the inclusion of county cricketers – Gerald Cogger (Sussex) and Hubert Doggart (Sussex) for the politicians, Denis Compton, Reg Routledge and John Warr (all Middlesex) for The Stage.

There were two extra rules – any man reaching 50 runs would compulsory retire. The other that any bowler capturing a batsman’s wicket before he had scored would be fined a guinea.

The politician’s captain Earl De La Warr (Postmaster General) won the toss and elected to bat. Lord Hawke opened the innings with Lt. Col. Bromley-Davenport, the MP for Knutsford. Lord Hawke made a single before being bowled by Denis Compton’s second ball. Bromley-Davenport (29) and Lloyd George (three fours in his 23) put together a substantial partnership during which there occurred an accident. Leo Genn bowled a friendly ball, which Bromley-Davenport hit towards Richard Attenborough. Attenborough ran 20 yards towards the ball but misjudged the catch and the ball hit him on the forehead. Attenborough collapsed unconscious and he was taken on a stretcher to hospital, where he stayed for two days before being discharged. The game continued in his absence.

After Hubert Doggart’s 50, two Cabinet Ministers, Harold Macmillan and Sir Walter Monckton, found themselves batting together. The stand was broken when Richard Hearne (known throughout the land as Mr. Pastry) bamboozled Macmillan who played back so far that he trod on his own wicket. Monckton was even more baffled by a ball from Rex Harrison, which bounced four times before bowling him! However good batting from the late-order peers took the politicians’ total to 178.

The Stage innings started well but after Hearne and Genn were out came the shock of the afternoon when Denis Compton was bowled second ball by Gerald Cogger for a duck. Cogger was fined a guinea – he wasn’t too displeased!.

The absence of the hospitalised Attenborough meant that The Stage were a man short but they had a better idea. A make-up artist went to work on Denis Compton who created a record by batting twice in the same innings. The tannoy announcer (John Snagge of the BBC) welcomed the number seven batsman as ‘Denis Pastry’. Compton did better this time but the Stage could not match the politicians’ innings and the match ended in a draw.

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