by Arunabha Sengupta
August 1921. The Army vs Public Schools at Lord’s.
A small boy approached an immensely tall middle-aged batsman who had just finished his hit in the nets. The boy produced his autograph book. Who was this incredible gentleman with a ramrod straight military bearing and the most imposing of appearances? Was he playing for the Army?
No was the answer.
In that case, did he play for anyone?
Again, the answer was no.
The boy withdrew with his book and pen to hunt down actual cricketers.
And the man went back to sit in the wicker chair and watch the next man in the nets.
He was Brigadier General RM Poore. Indeed, he was not playing in that match. He no longer played first-class cricket, had not been doing so since the Great War.
What he did not tell the boy was that he was a legend of Hampshire cricket. He played for them only when he could manage a few snatches of leave from the Army. Yet, in the 36 matches for them Major Poore scored 2819 runs at 47.77 with 10 hundreds. Seven of those hundreds and a highest of 304 came in the 12 matches in 1899, when his 1551 runs were obtained at 91.23, an average that stood as the best achieved in England till Don Bradman arrived in 1930. And his partnership with fellow armyman Captain Teddy Wynyard had amounted to a blitzkrieg of 411.
Even before playing first-class cricket in England, when stationed in South Africa with the 7th Hussars, prior to serving in the Second Matabele War in Rhodesia, Poore played 3 Tests against Lord Hawke’s Englishmen. Not that he was immensely successful, but it is just that the modest man failed to inform the autograph-hunting schoolboy that he had been a Test cricketer.
Even before that he had been aide-de-camp to Lord Harris, the former England captain and Governor of Bombay. In that capacity, Poore had played in the Bombay Presidency Matches for the Europeans, even scoring the first ever century in a first-class tournament in India. The 1895-96 Tests was not his only cricket against Lord Hawke’s England sides. When Hawke brought his team to India in 1892-93, Poore turned out against them for Bombay.
When the 7th Hussars returned to India in 1911, Poore played for the Europeans yet again.
Peter Wynne-Thomas later described Poore as one of the outstanding batsmen of his time. Perhaps an exaggeration given that there were the Ranjis and Frys and the others. But Poore himself did not think much of himself as a cricketer.
Known as the Ganeshkund Giant in India because of his six foot four inch frame, Poore was one of the finest horsemen of his time, a leading swordsman, a champion polo player, a winner of serious tennis and racquets tournaments. While he was scoring all those runs in the summer of 1899, he also made the winning hit in the final of the Inter-Regimental polo tournament in Hurlingham, won the title of the Best Man At Arms at the Royal Naval and Military Tournament. But, Poore did not attach too much importance to all these. He considered himself an armyman.
He was indeed one, serving great army names such as Haig, Kitchener, Baden-Powell and collected several decorations, including DSO during the Boer War.
All his sporting accomplishments he ascribed to good fortune. When not in his army service or sporting field, he was generally away from limelight, shunning adulation, being a doting husband and lavishing his affection on the platoon of dogs and horses he kept.
He also showed considerable concern for the men under his command, doing what he could to alleviate boredom and suffering of men on the veldt blockhouses during the Boer War, passing on newspapers and cakes from home. Later he worked hard for the welfare of ex-servicemen in the Bournemouth area.
Long after his death, a letter appeared in The Cricketer in 1977 from his erstwhile chauffeur, which stated, among other things, that he had been an excellent employer.
Robert Poore was born on 20 March 1866. He passed away on 14 July 1938.