All Ten: The Ultimate Bowling Feat

73 for 74, and then scoring 257 for six. Cranfield was being groomed to take over from Tyler as the side’s slow left-armer. He could turn the ball more than Tyler but lacked his guile. At first he seemed a more than adequate replacement, taking over 100 wickets in three successive seasons, but his temperament was suspect and by 1905 he had lost his place in the side. He died in 1909 aged 36 having contracted double pneumonia at a local football match. Four months later J.C. White, one of the greatest of all slow left-armers (and another all-ten man), made his debut for Somerset. On the final day Somerset extended their second innings to 327, mainly thanks to fifties from Palairet, Bernard and Ernest Robson (after a first innings duck). Taking two for 116 Trott had found things more difficult second time around. Middlesex, needing 278 to win, began well, but then slumped to 221 for seven before Trott (34 not out) skilfully marshalled the tail to see his side home with seven minutes left in front of a ‘good company’. Remarkably, Middlesex had also won their previous match by one wicket, whilst Somerset had lost theirs by the same margin. It was a busy season for Trott. Only he and the slower Wilfred Rhodes bowled more than 1,500 overs (with nobody else exceeding even 1,200). He could be expensive though, his 211 wickets costing 23.33 runs apiece. Wisden thought that this might be because the ‘inexhaustible’ Trott perhaps carried his variations of pace too far. Sadly Trott’s peak was all too short. He liked his drink and visiting the bookies, had begun to put on weight, and his marriage was breaking down. Wisden ’s report on the 1901 season alludes to a ‘deterioration’ in form, and by 1905 he had gone from ‘bad to worse’ and needed ‘a little hard training during winter and spring’. He still had his moments though, most notably in his famous benefit match against Somerset (again) in 1907 when he took four wickets in four balls (amazingly he almost got five in five, the next ball shaving the stumps and going for four byes) and then finished off the innings with a hat-trick. After the match Sammy Woods gave Trott a straw hat. Hand-painted on the band were seven rabbits bolting back to the pavilion. Trott played his last first-class match in 1911. Of his 1,674 wickets, 946 had been taken for Middlesex, a total then only exceeded by Hearne. He umpired competently for two seasons, but illness forced him to give up in 1914. Suffering from dropsy (a swelling of the soft tissues due to water accumulation) and with heart and kidney problems, he had become a shadow of his former self. At the end of July 1914 he discharged himself from hospital and returned to his lodgings in Willesden, north London. Alone in his room, he shot himself. With few possessions his ‘will’ was scribbled on the back of a laundry ticket. Three years later brother Harry, who in his time had battled mental illness, died aged just 51. Albert Trott