All Ten: The Ultimate Bowling Feat

27 Samuel Butler volley. Butler hit it hard, only to be brilliantly caught at mid off by Alfred Bourne, the only catch of his four-match first-class career. Cobden’s next two balls bowled batsmen numbers ten and eleven. Cambridge had won a famous match by two runs, their fourth successive victory against Oxford, and Cobden’s hat-trick had made history. Butler would redeem himself and make his own little bit of history next year. He began the 1871 season in good form, including taking ten wickets against MCC at Oxford, and eight for 25 in the only MCC innings of the return. Wisden estimated that ‘at least 21,000 of the upper crust of English society’ were present over the two days of the University match, including ‘an unprecedentedly large number of ladies’. Many of those attending would have passed through the newly installed turnstiles (or ‘tell-tale’ machines according to Wisden ). Both teams were reasonably experienced: the Oxford side included seven former Blues, Cambridge eight. Both were captained by their wicketkeepers. Oxford’s captain was Edward Tylecote who would go on to play for Kent and England. Three years previously he had scored 404 not out for Classical against Modern at Clifton, a then world record individual score. William Yardley, the Cambridge captain, also played for Kent. In 1870 he made the first century in a University match. He was an interesting character. One of the best batsman of his day, he got a racquets Blue, became a barrister, and was a successful playwright. After recent heavy rain the outfield was slow and Oxford, batting first in pleasant sunshine, made 170. Their previous year’s captain Bernard Pauncefote top scored with 50, while freshman George Harris, who later became the rather influential Lord Harris, made one of his side’s three ducks. Cambridge went in at 3.45, Butler opening the Oxford attack opposite the slow spin of Sidney Pelham. Cambridge started well enough, Walter Money, playing in his fourth University match, and Frederic Tobin putting on 22, the best opening partnership of a low-scoring match, before Tobin was caught at point. Three more wickets then went quickly, bringing in Charles ‘Buns’ Thornton, a famed hitter of the ball, to partner Yardley. The score having risen to 62 and with two good batsmen at the wicket Cambridge would have had hopes of emulating Oxford’s score. However at this point Butler swept away the middle and lower order, taking the last six wickets in just 16 balls. Yardley was caught at short leg but after that Butler needed no help from the field. Eight of his victims were bowled, including Thornton who 19 years later, batting for his own Eleven, would be on the receiving end of a Sammy Woods’ all-ten, and Cobden whose first-ball duck Butler no doubt found particularly satisfying. The 6ft 2in well-built Butler, with luxuriant side whiskers in the fashion of the time, must have been a frightening proposition at Lord’s. The infamous pitches were gradually improving: two weeks before the Oxford number four Walter Hadow had scored 217 there as Middlesex made 485 in reply to MCC’s 338. However, they could still be dangerous, as sadly evidenced in 1870 during the match between MCC & Ground and Nottinghamshire when George Summers, batting for the visitors, was hit on the head by a ball from Derbyshire fast bowler John Platts; a blow from which he later