One of the most encouraging features of the Test match at present being played between England and Australia at Trent Bridge from the English point of view is the success with which the youngsters of the English side have come off. Centuries by Hutton and Compton, and some excellent bowling by Wright, argue well for the future. While not exactly one of the rising generation, Paynter has in this match earned undying fame. His 216 not out will take a lot of beating. Paynter was born in 1901, and before he was twenty-five received his first chance for Lancashire. He owes his prominence in first class cricket to sheer hard work, rather than innate genius, for while still young, he lost the tops of the first and second fingers of the right hand. This accident, it might be. supposed, would have finished him as a fielder, to say nothing of a batsman; but in fact it had the opposite effect.
Paynter is a left-hander, and hence the injury to his right hand was less Serious than it might have been so far as his cricket career is concerned. After filling a very useful, but hardly brilliant, sphere in his county's eleven, Paynter accompanied D.R. Jardine's English team to Australia in 1932-33, and there, though not generally regarded as a regular member of the Test eleven, he made history in the last Test by rising from an attack of tonsilitis and playing a fine innings of 83, incidentally making the "winning hit for England—a hit which brought the Ashes back home again. In the last two years he has definitely established himself as one of the best batsmen in England, making huge scores for Lancashire. He is small in stature, but in spite" of this he gets plenty of power into his stroke: and when set, can be one of the most punishing batsmen now playing. He is equally good on both sides of the wicket. While no doubt he would deprecate being dubbed a record-breaker—since the tradition of cricket is all against "records" and what they have sometimes been made to stand for—Paynter's performance in the present game entitles him to be ranked with the greatest players the game has produced.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.