a welfare officer in a Doncaster colliery. When the coal mines were nationalised Brown lost his job and became the captain and assistant-secretary of Northamptonshire County Cricket Club (Northants) in 1949. This revitalised his career as he scored 1,077 runs at 24.47 and took 111 wickets at 27.00 in 1949, Northants improving from seventeenth and last place in the 1948 County Championship to sixth in 1949. As a result, Brown was asked to captain England in the last two Tests against New Zealand, taking two wickets and four catches in a 0–0 series draw. In 1950, he scored 1,108 runs at 38.20 and took 77 wickets at 28.38. When George Mann and Norman Yardley turned down the captaincy of the 1950–51 tour of Australia, Brown came into consideration and was made captain of the Gentleman against Players at Lord's. He came in at 194/6 and scored 122 out of 131 runs inside two hours, including a six into the Lord's Pavilion. He followed up with three quick wickets and was offered the tour captaincy the same afternoon. Brown had only a modest Test career up to that point, having made only 233 runs at 23.30 and taken 14 wickets at 40.79, but this was still a time when the England captain had to be an amateur even if he was a "passenger" in terms of ability. Brown was made captain for the last Test against the West Indies with England already 2–1 down in the series; they lost the final Test by an innings, which did not bode well for the team in Australia. Australia and New Zealand 1950–51 The 1950–51 England team under Brown's captaincy was regarded as one of the weakest sent to Australia and John Kay commented that without the key players Alec Bedser and Len Hutton, England's standard would have been little better than that of a club team. England lost the Test series 4–1, their only victory being a consolation win in the final Test. Despite his team's poor performance, the forty-year-old Brown enjoyed personal success and won considerable popularity among Australian supporters with his determination to fight on regardless of the odds. Unexpectedly, he scored 210 runs at 26.25 and took 18 wickets at 21.61 in the series, coming third in the England batting averages after Hutton and Reg Simpson and third in the bowling averages after Bedser and Trevor Bailey. Despite his determination,