All Ten: The Ultimate Bowling Feat

105 However, common sense prevailed and an MCC Committee meeting held in November declared Surrey Champions. Minds were then of course on more serious matters. Although nearing 40 when cricket recommenced in 1919, Rushby was still a force to be reckoned with. And Surrey certainly needed him. He and Bill Hitch carried the attack, in all matches bowling 1,900 overs and taking 251 wickets between them, with Rushby taking over 100 for the fourth and last time. But by 1921 his powers were waning and this proved to be his last season as he dropped out of the first-class game through illness, having taken 954 wickets (all for Surrey) at 20.58 apiece. Led by the ever resourceful Percy Fender Surrey were a team to reckon with. Six of the side played for England against Warwick Armstrong’s Australia, and Tom Shepherd, who didn’t, was one of the season’s leading batsmen. In the early 1920s they were always near to the top of the Championship, although never quite doing enough to reach the very top. They were to come so close in 1921. Going into their last match, at Lord’s against leaders, and reigning Champions, Middlesex, they had won 15 matches. They needed just one more win to take the crown from their north London rivals. Unfortunately, having bowled the home side out for 132 in the first innings, they couldn’t prevent them reaching 322 in their second to win by six wickets. For the second successive season Middlesex had won the Championship at Lord’s in an exciting finale that would be mirrored there 95 years later. At Taunton back in early July things had been a bit easier, although not at first as Surrey, with Hobbs out with appendicitis, slumped to 76 for six on the first morning, before recovering to make 236 thanks to 72 by William Abel and 49 by Fender. Abel was the son of Bobby Abel, whose unbeaten 357 still stands as Surrey’s highest ever individual score. Not in the same class as his illustrious father, he was still a useful cricketer who played 170 times for the county. It is an interesting reflection on early 1920s cricket, or at least the Somerset attack, that the first dismissal in the match, with only ten runs on the board, was a stumping, Alfred Jeacocke falling to White’s left-arm wiles. Somerset would have been feeling some confidence that they would make a decent reply. In their previous match against Warwickshire, which they won by seven wickets, Randall Johnson and Louis Wharton had both made eighties, and Tom Lowry fifty. And the last time their opening pair had gone out together, against Glamorgan at Swansea in June, they had both made centuries and put on 189. This time however Johnson went first ball while his partner, Sydney Rippon, whose son Geoffrey, born three years later, would become a government minister, made just ten. With Rushby taking advantage of a fast pitch wickets then fell at regular intervals with only the reliable Ernie Robson resisting for long. He was eventually bowled by Rushby just before close of play, which came with Somerset nine down for 89 (a slight improvement on 61 for eight). Rushby had taken all nine for 31 and, like James Lillywhite half a century before, would have a worrying night wondering whether he would achieve an all- Tom Rushby