All Ten: The Ultimate Bowling Feat

121 and Maurice Tate) and earned a place in F.T.Mann’s team touring South Africa the following winter. He couldn’t have done much better, taking 31 wickets in a closely fought series that England won 2-1. These were his only five Tests. By now an even greater medium pacer, Maurice Tate, had come along, and with Leicestershire’s George Geary also available further international honours were always unlikely. Even in 1934, his last full season, aged 43, he finished only a few runs and wickets short of a sixth double. Only six bowlers have exceeded his 2,874 first-class wickets and his position near the top of the record-list of course remains assured for ever. Having taken well over 100 wickets in every season since 1914, Kennedy lost form in 1926 and failed to achieve his usual three-figure haul. His benefit, which raised £1,095 from a rain-affected match against Surrey, will have provided some consolation. Things improved in 1927 and he was more or less back to his usual self with the ball. For The Oval Gentlemen v Players match the tradition was that no players would be selected from counties otherwise engaged. With twelve counties playing in the Championship (and Nottinghamshire playing the New Zealand tourists) the sides were far from representative and only five participants would reappear in the main match played at Lord’s the following week. Having said that, with Surrey, Middlesex and Hampshire not engaged, the professionals could put out a team whose batting order began Jack Hobbs, Andy Sandham, Jack (J.W.) Hearne, Patsy Hendren and Phil Mead, and whose members scored 57 centuries during the season (compared with the amateurs’ five!). There were no fewer than four Hampshire players in each side. Captained by one of them, Lionel Tennyson, the Gentlemen also included two pre- war Cambridge Blues who never played first-class county cricket but who went on to have long and successful Minor County careers: Michael Falcon (Norfolk) and wicketkeeper Walter Franklin (Buckinghamshire). Both fine cricketers, Falcon had taken eight wickets in the famous match at Eastbourne when an England XI beat Warwick Armstrong’s hitherto undefeated 1921 Australians. Hampshire fast bowler Richard Utley was making only his fifth first-class appearance. His first-class career lasted only two seasons, but with 90 wickets it was not unsuccessful. However he had a greater calling, entering the Benedictine Order and becoming a master at Ampleforth School. An even more intriguing choice was a fellow countryman of Kennedy’s, wrist-spinner Ian Peebles, who was actually making his first-class debut at the age of 19. In fact by the time he made his Test debut the following winter he had still not played county cricket. He had been coached by the great South African Aubrey Faulkner and much was expected of him. He had a short and successful Test career, but sadly his bowling lost its initial venom and his best days were soon over. Batting first the Players lost their first wicket at 57, Peebles forcing Sandham to play on to his famous googly. After that the day’s play was dominated by Hendren who made 150 before he became one of four wickets taken by Falcon. Batting at six Jack Parsons made a modest 29 Alex Kennedy