All Ten: The Ultimate Bowling Feat

75 1906 celebrated the centenary of the Gentlemen v Players series and the 40,000 spectators attracted to Lord’s saw a memorable match. Despite the rich amateur talent available in this so-called Golden Age of cricket, the Players usually had the edge: since 1890 they had been victorious eight times to the Gentlemen’s four. Two very strong sides had been assembled, although the injured C.B.Fry was unavailable for the Gentlemen, and the team did not include the two batsmen who finished top of the season’s averages: Worcestershire’s Reginald Foster who played two matches averaging 81, and Kent’s Cuthbert Burnup who averaged 67 from 13 matches. For the Players, George Hirst had turned down an invitation to play in order to save himself for his county. As he would eventually complete a unique season’s 2,000 runs-200 wickets double he probably deserved a rest, although his decision provoked some criticism. His presence might have affected the outcome of the match, although given his form he might also have spoiled Fielder’s all-ten. The Gentlemen were captained by Yorkshire’s Stanley (F.S.) Jackson, the Players by Warwickshire wicketkeeper Dick Lilley. Jackson had retired at the end of the previous season (in which he had captained England to an Ashes victory whilst topping both batting and bowling averages), but had accepted an invitation to captain the Gentlemen. Their batting was very strong. Gilbert Jessop, a man with a famous Test century to his name, went in as low as number eight, and at nine wicketkeeper Henry Martyn, Somerset’s only representative in the match, was a first-class centurion. In humid conditions Lancashire’s Reggie Spooner and Worcestershire captain Henry Foster opened for the Gentlemen against Fielder bowling from the Nursery End, and Nottinghamshire’s John Gunn bowling left- arm medium pace from the Pavilion End. Seventeen wickets would fall on the first day. The Times commented that ‘once more Lord’s proved a paradise for fast bowlers’, whilst Cricket suggested that the pitch had been over-watered. Fielder quickly dismissed both openers, Foster already having been dropped off him three times, and then Percy Perrin of Essex, to reduce the amateurs to 28 for three. Bernard Bosanquet, playing on home territory, joined Jackson, and a fighting partnership saw lunch taken with the score 102 for three. Fielder, having been rested, returned to have Bosanquet caught behind for 56, the partnership having put on 79 in 80 minutes. The only other significant contributions came from Jackson who, in his first innings of the year, scored 40 in two and a half hours, and Martyn whose brisk fifteen minute stay, which included three fours in an over in an attempt to knock Fielder off his length, ended when he skied a ball to Yorkshire’s Schofield Haigh at mid on. Having taken nine wickets, Fielder must have been heartened to see one of cricket’s natural number elevens, Walter Brearley (career batting average 5.89), coming to the wicket, and the excited spectators must have had high hopes of seeing an all-ten. They were not disappointed as the Lancashire fast bowler’s stumps were uprooted second ball. The pitch was obviously fast , Cricket commenting that Fielder’s deliveries had come quickly off the pitch, although The Times partly contradicted its earlier assessment by saying that the ‘wicket was not really difficult, Arthur Fielder