All Ten: The Ultimate Bowling Feat

160 Jack Mercer limited and he moved to Glamorgan. He soon made an impact and his 136 wickets in 1926 brought him the honour of being the first Glamorgan cricketer to become one of Wisden ’s Five Cricketers of the Year. It was a quality quintet, the other four being Harold Larwood, George Geary, and Australians Bill Woodfull and Bert Oldfield. The following winter he was selected to tour the subcontinent with Arthur Gilligan’s (non-Test playing) MCC side, apparently learning of his selection when reading the Daily Mail whilst on a horse-racing holiday in France! Worcestershire and Glamorgan were two of the 1930s’ weakest sides, both spending most of the decade in the lower reaches of the Championship. The home side at Worcester in 1936 was captained by wicketkeeper Bernard Quaife, son of Warwickshire great Willie Quaife; Glamorgan by the inspirational Maurice Turnbull. After overnight rain play could not begin until midday. Mercer had taken five Worcestershire wickets in each innings at The Gnoll, Neath the previous month and was probably anticipating the return match with some relish. If so he was soon proved to be right, The pitch gave him little help but the humid conditions did, as he moved the ball sharply either way, reducing Worcestershire to 59 for six by lunch, which he no doubt enjoyed as he reflected on a morning well spent, including a fifth wicket which gave him 100 for the season. One of his victims had been Harold ‘Doc’ Gibbons who, when he played his last match for the county ten years later, would be Worcestershire’s then leading run-scorer. Over his career Mercer had not always received the best of support from his fielders, but this time he had been well served by sharp work by the close catchers. Opener Charlie Bull had resisted solidly until just before lunch when he was caught by wicketkeeper Tom Brierley. A peripatetic cricketer, Brierley appeared for Lancashire after the War and then, having emigrated, returned as a member of the 1954 Canadian tourists. Bull’s career did not last as long. Three years later he was killed in a motor accident on the Sunday evening of the Whitsuntide match with Essex at Chelmsford. Resuming after more rain the bowlers had to use a wet ball, and Roger Human and Alexander (Sandy) Singleton took full advantage, putting on 54 in just over an hour before the aggressive Singleton swung once too often and was stumped. Still with one more year at Oxford University Singleton, who would captain Worcestershire in 1946, was playing his first Championship game of the season. Mercer must have had high hopes of polishing the tail off quickly. Reg Perks, who went in at number ten, was a fine bowler, but he was also a record-breaking batsman of the wrong sort who, in a long career, would finish with an unsurpassed 156 ducks to his name. Mercer quickly helped him on the way to his record. To be fair Perks was not a complete duffer with the bat: he would eventually make 14 fifties. Peter Jackson who followed him was even less effective: in a 549-innings career he never passed 40. However he did hang around for a while in a last wicket partnership of 22 before Mercer had him caught in the outfield by George