PUDSEY is known throughout the cricketing world as the place in Yorkshire where Len Hutton and Herbert Sutcliffe were shaped into becoming among the finest batsmen the game has ever produced, writes David Warner.

But it is Pudsey bowlers who have been in the headlines recently with Paul Hutchison (Pudsey St Lawrence) and Matthew Hoggard (Pudsey Congs) probably becoming the first pair of pacemen from the town's clubs to open the bowling for Yorkshire.

It was Pudsey St Lawrence stalwart Albert Geoffrey Parker who posed the question of whether it had ever happened before as he watched Hutchison and championship debutant Hoggard in action together at Gloucester.

He was pretty certain that it never had and so was Pudsey St Lawrence's president Keith Moss, who also watched part of the match along with his wife Jean, in his capacity as chairman of Yorkshire.

Geoffrey, who has attended plenty of Yorkshire cricket this season with his equally strongly connected Pudsey SL brother Roland, recalled that the greatest fast bowler to come from Pudsey was Major William Booth, who was killed in action near Serre in France in 1916 at the age of 29.

Booth was educated at Fulneck School, Pudsey, and went on to play 144 matches for Yorkshire and two Tests for England between 1908-1914, hitting 4,753 runs with a top score of 210 and capturing 603 wickets at 19.82 runs apiece.

Booth was brought up at Town End House, near the Britannia Inn at Pudsey, along with a brother and sister who for 50 years kept his room just as it had been at the time of his death, which was caused by a shell exploding in the same operation that wounded another great Yorkshire player, Roy Kilner.

Although Booth was a batsman of some class, he is unlikely to have managed the same extraordinary achievement as Hutchison at Gloucester, who batted through to the end from number three after coming in as a night-watchman.

Even David Byas, Yorkshire's regular number three, has only managed to be not out once at the end of a completed innings, and Hutchison's feat must be one of the most remarkable of all time by a night-watchman.

Although he played and missed a few times against West Indian pace ace Courtney Walsh - as almost everyone does - he rarely looked in any trouble during his 57 overs at the crease, by far the longest he has ever batted.

Hutchison does not possess many attacking shots, apart from an occasional off-drive, but he does not miss much that is straight and never looks worried however difficult the circumstances.

His epic innings was something right out of the ordinary, but perhaps Yorkshire fans should not be too surprised that he is a difficult man to dislodge.

In 13 first-class innings for Yorkshire from the start of his career up to the end of the Gloucestershire match he has only been dismissed twice, which is a remarkable record by any standards.

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