All Ten: The Ultimate Bowling Feat

137 George Geary 1934 Australians, dismissing Don Bradman in his penultimate match. With 152 wickets Geary was at the height of his powers in 1929. An elbow injury meant that he had hardly bowled in 1928 and for a while his career was in jeopardy. However an operation fixed the problem and by the following winter he was fit enough to top the England bowling averages and in the final Test at Melbourne take five for 105 in Australia’s first innings, bowling 81 overs, at the time a record for the most balls bowled in a Test innings. Leicestershire finished ninth in the Championship in 1929, a good performance for a side including few top players. They were captained by Eddie Dawson whose brief five-match Test career would finish with a fifty at Eden Park, Auckland the following February. Glamorgan finished bottom, winning just three matches. Wisden thought that they had rarely had a much more depressing season. They had joint captains, Norman Riches and Johnnie Clay, but unfortunately on a number of occasions neither was available. Their batting was inconsistent and they were dismissed below 100 on eight occasions, including twice below fifty. Earlier in the season Leicestershire had beaten them by an innings at Loughborough, bowling them out for 98 in their second innings. Even so, given that they had won their previous match against Somerset at Weston-super-Mare chasing 247, they must have been confident of reaching just 84 to win in the fourth innings of the return match in August 1929. George Geary had other ideas. Ynysangharad Park in the heart of Pontypridd had been opened in 1923 as the town’s War Memorial. As well as being home to Pontypridd CC it would host many other sports and entertainments. Glamorgan had been playing there since 1926, their first such match away from the main centres of Cardiff and Swansea since they attained first-class status in 1921. Attendances were good, and in 1929 the ground was not only awarded two Championship matches but one against the South African tourists as well. Leicestershire batted first and made only 102, with left-arm spinner Frank Ryan (five for 38) and off-spinner Clay (four for 30) doing most of the damage. It might have been worse: the score was only 79 when the ninth wicket fell but fast bowler Haydon Smith came in and hit 22 while Geary (8 not out) held up the other end. In a low-scoring match this would prove to be a crucial partnership. Glamorgan did better, being dismissed shortly before close of play for 160, Geary taking six for 78 and Ewart Astill, the only bowler to take more than 2,000 wickets for Leicestershire, four for 56 with his medium-pace spin. Leicestershire’s second-innings 141, Ryan and Clay again taking most of the wickets, left Glamorgan all the time in the world to make just 84 to win. The pitch wasn’t easy, but it was still a very gettable target, although it was soon looking very ungettable. Early failures included William Bates (top-scorer in Bestwick’s all-ten), whose 70 had held the first innings together, and Arnold Dyson and Joe Hills, two of five batsmen who made Championship hundreds for Glamorgan in 1929 but who both contributed nothing this time. With half the side gone for 19 runs two of Glamorgan cricket’s greatest, Maurice Turnbull and the captain Clay, were