All Ten: The Ultimate Bowling Feat

49 Albert Moss not had three catches dropped. Canterbury, 94 for six overnight, quickly lost their last four wickets next morning to leave Wellington 179 to win. In a 24-match first-class career lasting 30 years Canterbury number seven Thomas (T.W.) Reese scored only 374 runs and took no wickets. He was however a very good fielder (he probably had to be) and did a great service to cricket by compiling two substantial histories covering New Zealand cricket between 1841 and 1933. The pitch had improved but although McGirr (31) again provided late order resistance the visitors were beaten by 39 runs. This time Frederick Harman (five for 43), another first-class debutant, did the damage but it was Moss (three for 44) who set the ball rolling by taking three of the first four wickets to fall, all bowled. Moss played three more matches that season and then (apart from one appearance as an umpire a year later, coincidentally in a Wellington- Canterbury match) never appeared on a first-class cricket field again. He had taken 26 wickets at 11 apiece, 25 of which were taken before he eventually scored his maiden first-class run! The reasons for the brevity of Moss’s career seem to be related to personal rather than cricketing issues. The main problem seemed to be gambling, although drink was apparently also involved. His life went downhill. In 1891 he was tried for wounding his wife with intent to murder. He was found not guilty on the grounds of insanity and remanded for nearly five years before being deported to South America. He later went to South Africa where, although he found work, he was still troubled and unable to settle. Divorced from Mary, he had decided to end his life in the waters of Cape Town docks. Fortunately, he remembered seeing a Salvation Army premises in the city and sought their help. He joined the Army and eventually became a probationary-lieutenant. Meanwhile Mary was teaching in New Zealand. When Moss had taken his all-ten the ball had been mounted and presented to him. It was a treasured possession and Mary now had it. In the context of the sadness of a broken marriage the ball was to be of major significance again in Moss’s life. Mary was on a walking holiday at the beginning of the First World War, when a piece of paper blew against her leg. It was from the Salvation Army magazine War Cry and picking it up she noticed that, remarkably, it included a reference to the work of a Captain Albert Moss. Could this be her ex-husband? Mary made enquiries and found out that it was. In autumn 1915 Moss was working at a Salvation Army farm when a parcel arrived for him containing the ball and a note from Mary. This led to reconciliation and remarriage. Three years later the couple moved back to England where sadly Mary predeceased him, dying in 1928. Moss passed away in 1945 in Essex, a well-respected member of the Salvation Army.