All Ten: The Ultimate Bowling Feat

153 by spin and played on good pitches. He toured the British Isles in 1930 and 1934 with Australia’s Ashes winning teams. Tall and with a long run- up (spectators apparently enjoyed heckling him as he walked slowly back to his mark), he had a good action, and the stamina to bowl accurately for long spells. Not super-fast like, for example, Larwood, he could however move the ball, and also inconvenience batsmen with sharp lift. New South Wales were playing their last match of the season. Having won four matches out of five they had already retained the Sheffield Shield. They were captained by wicketkeeper Hammy Love, the visitors by Vic Richardson. A noted allround sportsman, Richardson was one of only three Australian batsmen who would play in all five matches of the Bodyline series, standing up well against the fearsome attack before making a pair in the Fifth Test. Wall was also in good form: he would take his 50th Test wicket in the Fourth Test at Sydney a week later, and with 16 wickets in the series was the only Australian pace man to make any impact. He had taken five for 72 in the first England innings of the Third Test at Adelaide, a match played before a total attendance of 172,000. The spectators three weeks later at Sydney for the first day of the South Australia match, a more modest 7,000, must have been surprised to see the powerful New South Wales batting line-up routed in conditions which, apart from a cross-breeze helping Wall’s swerve, were good for batting. Bill Brown went quickly, caught by Richard ‘Dick’ Whitington for a duck. Neither was yet 21. Whitington would eventually become a prolific writer of cricket books, whilst the following year Brown would score a century at Lord’s in his second Test. As Test opener Jack Fingleton was then joined at the wicket by Don Bradman, and Stan McCabe was to follow, the home supporters must have expected that their team would put together a formidable total as they had already done several times in the season. At first all seemed to be going well. Fingleton and Bradman were still together at lunch and Wall had the unremarkable figures of one for 31 from seven eight-ball overs. At the beginning of Wall’s second over after lunch New South Wales were a comfortable 87 for one. At the end of it, in a Verity-like collapse, they were 88 for five, with Fingleton the first to go. The last time next man in Stan McCabe had appeared at the Sydney Cricket Ground he had played one of cricket’s great innings, 187 not out in the First Test against the ferocious attack of Larwood and Voce. This time he was caught behind first ball. He was followed by Sheffield Shield debutant Raymond Rowe, and then by Frank Cummins, playing the last match of a first-class career that was decidedly less successful than that of his illustrious cousin Charlie Macartney. Don Bradman managed to stay a little longer, seeing the score to 106 before he became Wall’s ninth victim, mishitting a hook and skying a catch to square leg. His 56 was made in the relatively slow time, for him, of 109 minutes. When the innings closed soon afterwards Wall had taken nine for 5 in 5.4 overs after lunch. He had hit the stumps six times and, amazingly, the only batsman apart from Bradman and Fingleton to reach four was last man out Bill O’Reilly! Six others failed to score and Bill Howell, who had Tim Wall