Chris Waters: Search is on as MCC pay tribute to cricket’s fallen WWI heroes

Major William Booth (Major William were his Christian names) was killed going “over the top” while serving as a Second Lieutenant in the West Yorkshire Regiment.

Booth was one of Yorkshire and England’s finest cricketers, a powerful batsman and medium-fast bowler.

Now the England and Wales Cricket Board are seeking your help in an effort to track down his descendents.

The ECB want to invite relatives of the four England Test players killed during the Great War to the third Test between England and India that starts at Southampton on July 27 to help commemorate the World War One centenary.

Along with Booth, the other England Test cricketers killed in the conflict were Colin Blythe, the Kent left-arm spin bowler, who died near Passchendaele in 1917; Kenneth Hutchings, the Kent batsman, who fell at Ginchy, France, in 1916; and Leonard Moon, the Middlesex batsman, who perished near Salonica, Greece, in 1916.

It is a magnificent gesture by the governing body, and one that will bring great poignancy to the match at The Ageas Bowl.

Blythe, the most famous of the ill-fated quartet, was one of the greatest cricketers of any era; at Headingley in 1907, he took match figures of 15-99 against South Africa, and in all first-class cricket claimed 2,503 wickets at an average of 16.81.

Born in Lowtown, Pudsey, in 1886, Booth might himself be remembered as one of the game’s greatest all-rounders had war not cut him off in his prime, five months short of his 30th birthday.

He played his earliest cricket at Fulneck School and was later associated with Pudsey St Lawrence, breaking into the Yorkshire first team in 1908 and also playing for Wath CC in the Mexborough League while working at a colliery in South Yorkshire.

It took Booth two years to cement his county place, and, in 1911, he served note of his talent with a double-hundred at Worcester, one writer commenting that “few finer examples of off-driving and square-cutting can have been seen” and that “the ease with which he made his runs was astonishing”.

As a bowler, Booth delivered right-arm with a high action and bowled at a brisk pace that enabled him to hurry up the finest batsmen.

Wisden, however, was more enamoured with his bowling than his batting and in 1914 described him thus...

“With a free, natural action, he does a good deal at the end of his delivery, and makes the ball come very quickly off the pitch.

“His off-break can be quite formidable, but he does not lean on it to any great extent.

“Swerve and pace off the ground are his strong points.

“If his bowling left him he could soon become a first-rate bat, but in Yorkshire’s interests it is to be hoped that for the next few seasons he will not take his batting too seriously.

“His business is to get wickets, as he has not the physique which has enabled George Hirst to be a crack bat and bowler at the same time.”

There were many, however, who disagreed with the almanack.

They felt that Booth was a genuine all-rounder – not as good as Hirst, perhaps, but good enough to have carved out a lengthy international career.

Tall and agile, with cheerful demeanour, Booth enjoyed his best season in 1913, when the double of 1,228 first-class runs and 181 wickets earned him a place on the 1913-14 tour of South Africa, along with the honour of being named one of Wisden’s ‘Five Cricketers of the Year’.

He made his only two Test appearances at Durban and Port Elizabeth, taking 4-49 in the latter fixture, which England won by 10 wickets.

During the game in Durban, Booth – along with the Surrey pair Jack Hobbs and Bert Strudwick – was thrown out of a car as it approached a level crossing at Umbito.

Booth and the driver were trapped beneath the overturned vehicle, but Booth escaped with a minor back strain that did not prevent him from continuing in the match. However, Booth did need a runner and was actually run out batting at No 9.

Hobbs hit 82 as England won by an innings and 157 runs, laying the foundation for a 4-0 series win.

Booth enjoyed another fine season in 1914.

He bowled unchanged in the game against Gloucestershire at Bristol, where he returned match figures of 12-89.

He ended the summer with 887 first-class runs at 21.63 and 157 wickets at 17.85.

Only narrowly did he fail to complete another “double”.

Along with Alonzo Drake, another fine all-rounder, Booth had been expected to play a prominent role for Yorkshire through to the mid-1920s.

But Drake also died suddenly, in 1919, of heart disease aged just 35, with the club tragically losing two of its leading lights in the space of three years.

Booth, who joined up alongside his Yorkshire colleagues Roy Kilner and Arthur Dolphin, and who said on enlisting for service that “it is our duty… we cannot do anything else”, was killed in no-man’s land when he was struck in the heart and shoulder by shrapnel.

He died in the arms of Abe Waddington, who himself returned from the Great War to play for Yorkshire, Waddington nursing him through his final moments in a rat-infested shell hole.

It was not until nine months later that Booth’s remains were identified from his MCC cigarette case found in the pocket of his tunic.

His sister, unable to accept that he had been killed, always kept a light burning in the window of their cottage in the hope that he would return, and his room remained untouched until she herself died after the Second World War.

A popular figure on and off the field, well-liked and respected by all, Booth will be honoured at Southampton almost a hundred years after his death cast the darkest of shadows over Yorkshire cricket.

Herbert Sutcliffe, the former Yorkshire and England opener, remembered him as “a great batsman and a great bowler”.

Archibald White, another former Yorkshire player, described him as “a magnificent cricketer and a splendid fellow in every way”.

The Yorkshire president Lord Hawke simply put it like this: “England lost one of the most promising and charming young cricketers it was ever my lot to meet.”

If you are related to Major Booth, or any of the England Test players killed during the Great War, or know anyone who is, please contact Andrew Walpole, the ECB’s head of corporate communications, on 0207 432 1252 or email [email protected]