All Ten: The Ultimate Bowling Feat

224 Ian Thomson Set 206 to win on a worsening pitch Sussex adopted a policy of hit and hope. As they made only 23, clearly it didn’t work as David Brown (two for 7), Jack Bannister (six for 16) and Cartwright (two wickets in two balls) enjoyed themselves, taking the last nine wickets for eight runs; Gunn concluding proceedings with his second duck of the match. Only Hampshire, at Burton in 1958, had made such a low score in England since the War. As an illustration of the difficulty experienced by the Sussex batsmen, Les Lenham was first hit on the chest by Bannister, and then, from a ball pitching in the same area, leg-before to a shooter! The next match at Worthing, starting the following day, was no better, at least for batsmen. It was over in two days. Thomson wasn’t complaining however. He took eight Nottinghamshire wickets and finished the match top of the national averages. With concerns about the pitch, and the size of the crowds, that was the end of first-class cricket at Worthing, 43 matches having been hosted since the first one in 1935. Apart from flying out as a replacement on MCC’s ‘A’ tour of Pakistan in 1955/56, Thomson had never really been in contention for representative honours as there were just too many good bowlers around. So his selection at the age of 35 to go to South Africa in the winter of 1964/65 with Mike Smith’s side was a bit of a surprise. The England pace attack was in a state of transition. Fred Trueman and Brian Statham (both younger than Thomson!) were coming to the end of their great careers, John Snow hadn’t yet quite come to the fore and Thomson, to his surprise, was selected to replace Yorkshire’s Tony Nicholson who had dropped out injured from the originally selected squad. As a stock bowler, while off-spinners David Allen and Fred Titmus bowled England to a one-nil victory, he sent down 248 overs in five Tests, taking just nine wickets on pitches not made for English seamers. At the time of the First Test he had already taken 1,497 first-class wickets, a total unequalled by any other Test debutant. It was fortunate that he managed to stay fit because England’s bowlers had been so beset by injuries that Somerset’s Ken Palmer, who was coaching locally, was brought in for the last Test, and even Geoff Boycott was pressed into regular action (taking five wickets and finishing second in the averages!). Thomson’s exertions left him tired when the 1965 season began and he retired at the end of the year, although he came back for a few mainly List A matches in the early 1970s. Chairman Arthur Gilligan had approached him about succeeding Dexter as captain, but he preferred to make the break and return to his father’s garage, before later becoming a teacher. Only Maurice Tate, George Cox and Albert Relf have exceeded the 1,527 wickets that Thomson took for Sussex. By mid-August 2017 the top six oldest living England cricketers were Don Smith (94), Hubert Doggart (92), Ian Thomson (88), Alan Oakman (87), Alan Moss (86) and Jim Parks (85). All but Moss had played for Sussex. Good Old Sussex by the Sea !