Memories Of A Long Innings From An Essex Cricket Club Captain

Memorabilia from a former English Test cricketer forms part of the Homes & Interiors auction at Sworders on November 26. The cache of vintage cricketing books and ephemera to be offered in seven lots come from sale from the estate of Douglas ‘Doug’ Insole (1926-2017) who was captain of Essex County Cricket Club from 1950-60. An all-rounder who kept wicket, betted and bowled, he played in nine Test matches for England, five of them on the 1956–57 tour of South Africa, where he was vice-captain to Peter May. After retiring from playing, he was prominent in cricket administration, and served as a sometimes controversial chairman of the England selectors in the 1960s and as President of the Marylebone Cricket Club.

A limited edition print titled Essex Captains 1950-94 signed by Doug Insole plus fellow captains of ECCC Trevor Bailey, Brian Taylor, Keith Fletcher, Graham Gooch is offered together with a selection of 30 Essex County Cricket Club Handbooks of various years with an estimate of £50-100. Numerous well-known cricketers from the 1980s and 90s have signed menus, miniature bats, photographs and books that are offered together estimated at £100-150 while a lot comprising 63 cricketing ties plus the tour chest used by Insole as team manager on the 1978-79 Ashes tour of Australia is pitched at £150-250.
No cricketing collection is complete without a decent run of John Wisden's Cricketers' Almanack. The lot comprising a total 74 volumes (54 hard backs with dust jackets) mostly running from the 1940s has an estimate of £500-1000. Insole was himself one of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1956.

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