His modesty had a rueful smile. Reproved for getting out to a dolly catch off a near-wide, "Well, now," he apologised, "I don't get a lot o' practice against that sort."
This modesty was a part of his quiet confidence. "Nervous ? Of course I'm nervous. There you are, out in t' middle an there's 30,000 people all knowing better what to do than you do."
Talking things over, after a bombing raid of bumpers, he reflected: "Nobody likes 'em, but some of us don't let on."
If he knew himself to have the measure of the great O'Reilly, who was no paper tiger, he also retained the respect of one master for another. Describing an over of fearsome hostility, he said: "First he bowled me an off-break, then he bowled me a leg-break; then his googly, then a bumper, then one that went with his arm . . . ."
"But that's only five, Maurice. What about the last one ?"
"Oh, that," said Maurice deprecatingly. "That was a straight 'un and it bowled me."
The vintage Leyland story concerns a Test in which Australia had amassed a mammoth score and Leyland went in, bent on what seemed his regular task, to retrieve England's bad start. He did his duty faultlessly but, farm the bowling as he might, wicket after wicket fell and a quarter of an hour before the close England, with seven wickets down, were still some 300 behind. Batsman No. 9 hit his first ball into the covers and started on a nimble single. Leyland waved his eager partner back. " Wait your hurry, Mr. Robins. We shan't get 'em all tonight."
Maurice Leyland | Cricket Players and Officials | ESPN Cricinfo
