All Ten: The Ultimate Bowling Feat

171 Eddie Watts thoughts were elsewhere. Surrey and Warwickshire were both below halfway in the Championship. Surrey, with future England captain Freddie Brown in the side, were captained by Monty Garland-Wells, a positive cricketer and fine allround sportsman whose name, according to Wisden, was informally used during the War as code word in North Africa: Garland-Wells = Monty = Montgomery. The home side, with past England captain Bob Wyatt in its ranks, was captained by Peter Cranmer, a brilliant rugby player who played 16 times for England. Wisden referred to him as ‘a golden boy of English sport in the 1930s’. Wyatt’s long career with Warwickshire was coming to an end; after the War he would play for, and captain, Worcestershire. The umpires were Charlie Parker (he of the all-ten in 1921) and Joe Hardstaff, whose son Joe was playing against the West Indies in the Third Test at The Oval and becoming the third Nottinghamshire batsman to complete 1,000 Test runs. On a good pitch and before a crowd of some 4,000, Surrey used up the whole of Saturday compiling 336. England opener Laurie Fishlock top scored with 91, whilst leg-spinner Eric Hollies finished with four for 118, his final wicket giving him 100 for the season. Watts made 21 before he was stumped off the occasional off breaks of the 43-year-old Warwickshire opener Arthur Croom whose three for 22 were the only three wickets he took in this, his final, season. Scoring 55 not out, Surrey wicketkeeper Gerald Mobey, in his first fairly full season after spending most of the 1930s understudying Ted Brooks, was finally getting a chance to display his skills both sides of the stumps and earned selection for the abortive 1939/40 MCC tour to India. A collection for the testimonial fund of Worcestershire’s Charles Bull (killed in a car crash earlier in the season) was held among the crowd and produced £38 15s 7d. Warwickshire collapsed badly on the second day, future captain Tom Dollery (25) top scoring in an all-out first innings of 115. Most of the damage was done by the leg breaks of Brown (six for 46) who was in a good run of form having taken a career-best eight for 34 in the first innings of the previous match against Somerset. Watts had hardly been needed in the first innings, bowling just four wicketless overs, but was soon contributing in the follow-on. The Warwickshire openers Croom and Aubrey Hill had both played against Yorkshire eight years before when Verity took the first of his two all-tens. Croom and then Reg Santall, both of whom were in their last seasons, went quickly. Croom had been playing for Warwickshire since 1922, whilst Santall had played in every season between the Wars (having made his debut at the age of 16) and would neatly finish his career with exactly 500 first-class appearances. Hill went at 62, having had the satisfaction of reaching 1,000 runs for the season for the first time during his innings. 123 for three at the close was something of a recovery but if Warwickshire were to have a chance of saving the match they needed the fourth-wicket partnership between past and future England players Wyatt and Dollery to continue to prosper. Unfortunately neither lasted long the next morning. The pitch still favoured batting, but a heavy atmosphere helped the ball to swing considerably and with a devastating spell of six for 4 Watts