Len Hutton - Wartime Injury and Recovery

Wartime Injury and Recovery

At the beginning of the war, Hutton volunteered for the army and was recruited to the Army Physical Training Corps as a sergeant-instructor. Although no first-class cricket was played during the war, league and charity cricket matches continued and Hutton played several high-profile matches in 1940. But in March 1941, his future in cricket was threatened by a serious injury. On the last day of a commando training course in York, Hutton fell in the gymnasium when a mat slipped from under him. He suffered a fractured left forearm and dislocated his ulna at the wrist. By the summer, surgery and rest initially looked to have repaired the injury; Hutton returned to his unit and resumed cricket, scoring a century in one game. However, he began to suffer increasing pain and underwent more surgery to graft bone from his legs onto the injured arm. A first operation failed, but the second attempt at the end of 1941 eventually proved successful. Hutton was discharged from the army in the summer of 1942 and after a period of recovery he began work as a civilian for the Royal Engineers, inspecting the condition of government-owned properties. However, the surgery left him with a left arm almost two inches shorter than the right. His subsequent recovery and return to cricket was closely followed by the wartime press, which kept track of many pre-war cricketers.

Hutton resumed professional cricket with Pudsey St Lawrence in 1943, briefly captaining the team before poor results and a disagreement with the committee led him to resign the captaincy. He played for Pudsey until 1945, batting successfully and helping the team to the Priestley Cup, but his relationship with the club remained strained and he did not play for them again after 1945. When the war ended in 1945, a programme of first-class matches was organised, involving counties and other teams. A series of matches was played between England and an Australian Services cricket team, called Victory Tests although they were not official Test matches. Hutton played in all three games with mixed success. He scored 46 in the second match, but was struck painfully on his weak arm by a short ball from Keith Miller, whom he encountered for the first time. After scoring 81 for Yorkshire against the Australian team, Hutton scored 104 and 69 in the final "Test". Another century followed for Yorkshire against the Australians, taking his first-class run aggregate to 782 runs at an average of 48.87 in nine games. Commentators were satisfied that his batting technique remained effective and that he could still succeed at the highest level. The showpiece match of the season was England against the Dominions at Lord's, but Hutton was prevented from appearing by his commitments to Pudsey.