All Ten: The Ultimate Bowling Feat

179 Jim Sims precursor to an even finer season in 1949 when he took 183 wickets (and didn’t play in any Tests!). West were 106 for three at close of play, Sims having picked up two wickets including Jenkins, caught by Pawson for 26. Festival-style batting saw another 492 runs scored on the second day. First West took their score to 294 all out (Sims three for 82), and then East closed on 304 for eight, Kent’s left-hand opener Les Todd top scoring with 107 and Pawson making 51. An overnight declaration left West a stiff, but potentially gettable, 402 to win. They actually had a useful batting side. Apart from Sam Cook, a famous batting incompetent who strangely batted at six in the second innings, they were all, or would be, centurions (although some only managed one). However they never got close to their target. Jenkins was the first wicket to fall, caught by Tom Barling who was appearing in the last of his 391 first-class matches, all but two of which had been played for Surrey. By lunch Sims had taken seven for 69 and with Pawson going on with his very occasional off breaks he was given every opportunity to complete the full set – a feat he soon accomplished. He hit the stumps five times, and three batsmen were stumped, two by Middlesex’s Syd Brown, a brilliant outfielder who shared the keeping with Surrey’s Arthur McIntyre. They were the only stumpings of his 329-match career. Sims had troubled everyone, only three batsmen reaching 30. All had played for England since the War: Gloucestershire’s George Emmett, a fine county batsman who two months earlier had controversially replaced Len Hutton for the Third Test against Australia; Somerset’s Maurice Tremlett, father of Hampshire’s Tim and grandfather of England’s Chris; and Worcestershire’s left-hand allrounder Dick Howorth. Sims had gone into the match with 91 wickets for the season. His performance enabled him to reach his 100, a feat he had performed every year since 1935 (apart from 1938 when he was handicapped by minor injuries). The Essex cousins Smith, Ray and Peter, who took 196 wickets between them during the season, bowled twelve wicketless overs in the second innings. Peter, another wrist-spinner, took nine wickets in an innings four times in his career, including twice in 1948 when his cousin picked up the other wicket each time; but an all-ten eluded him. One of the umpires was Gerald Mobey, who had kept wicket for Surrey when Watts had taken his all-ten in 1939. He had played the last of his 81 first-class matches just a month before, and would later officiate in the Championship for five years. At 45 years 120 days Sims was the second-oldest bowler (after Bestwick) to take all-ten. His durability would earn him a second benefit in 1950, his first in 1946 having been ruined by the weather. Middlesex to the end, after he had finished with the first-class game he looked after the Second Eleven, giving sage advice to many young players, became coach and, in 1969, scorer. He was staying in a Canterbury hotel in April 1973 when he died the night before a Benson and Hedges Cup match.