Early Years and Success For Yorkshire
Leyland was born in New Park, Harrogate, Yorkshire, England. He came from a cricketing family. His father Ted was a well-respected club cricketer in the tough northern leagues and had become a noted groundsman. Maurice first played for Moorside C.C. in Lancashire at the age of 12, where his father was both the groundsman and playing professional and at 14 he played in hard school of Lancashire League cricket. After the end of the Great War he left the Army and dedicated himself to professional cricket. From 1918 to 1920 he was engaged as the professional at Harrogate C.C. at St. George's Road, he played in Yorkshire Council matches and made his debut for the Yorkshire 2nd XI.
His county debut came against Essex at Southend in 1920, before he had ever spectated at a first-class game. He soon became a fixture and remained so until the outbreak of the Second World War. He reappeared after the end of hostilities, playing his last match for Yorkshire against the MCC in the Scarborough Festival of 1946 and in a handful of other games in the following two years for miscellaneous representative sides. He scored 62 centuries for Yorkshire.
Leyland won his coveted county cap in 1922 and passed 1,000 runs in a season for the first time in the following year. He went on to complete his thousand runs in every season from then until the outbreak of war, seventeen consecutive seasons in all. He scored 2,000 runs in a season three times. In 1932 he scored 1,013 runs in August alone. In partnership with the great Herbert Sutcliffe he once smashed 102 off six overs shared by Ken Farnes, Nichols and O'Connor at Scarborough against Essex. His highest aggregate for Yorkshire was 2,196 in 1933, when he scored 2,317 in all first-class games at an average of 50.36.
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