All Ten: The Ultimate Bowling Feat

76 nor did the ball get up unduly high’. Whatever the conditions, Fielder had achieved his success by bowling an unyielding length on or outside the off stump, six of his victims having been either bowled or leg-before and three more caught at the wicket. Lilley had used four bowlers at the other end. All had played for England, all would take over 100 wickets in the season, but all went unrewarded while Fielder set his record. Umpire John Moss having stood for an all-ten at Taunton six years before had now presided over the next one. At the close of a pace-dominated first day the Players were 136 for seven, with only Tom Hayward (54) and Yorkshire’s David Denton (48) withstanding the speed of Brearley and Surrey’s Neville Knox. This was Hayward’s great season. He scored 3,518 runs, a total famously only ever exceeded by Denis Compton and Bill Edrich in 1947. Knox was probably the fastest bowler in England at that time, and yet Martyn stood up to the stumps, taking the ball with ease. The Gentlemen used up most of the second day in scoring 321, Spooner (114), Foster (67) and Jessop (73 not out in an hour) contributing most of the runs. The fearless Jessop had been particularly severe on Fielder, more than once dropping on to one knee and pulling him into the Mound Stand. The 49 that the unlikely pairing of Brearley and Jessop added for the last wicket was to be the difference between the two teams. Fielder took another four wickets, but they cost 131 runs, his figures not helped by Jessop’s onslaught. Set 290 to win the Players lost three early wickets, all bowled by Knox. Surrey colleagues Hayward (34), Ernie Hayes (55) and Walter Lees (51), supported by John Gunn (42), started a fightback but nobody could last long enough against the intimidating pace of Knox whose seven for 110 bowled his side to victory. Knox’s career was meteoric. He was in only his second full season of first-class cricket after leaving Dulwich College (a good breeding ground for quick bowlers: both Arthur Gilligan and Trevor Bailey are old boys). He appeared in two Tests in 1907, but because of acute shin soreness his career was more or less over soon afterwards. Fielder was not much of a batsman but, as a number eleven, his name is associated with two famous last wicket partnerships. At Melbourne in January 1908 the 39 runs that he and Sydney Barnes scored is still England’s highest last wicket partnership to win a Test, and the following year at Stourbridge he scored an unbeaten 112 in putting on a then-world record 235 with Frank Woolley (185). Fielder is one of only three batsmen to score a century batting at number eleven in the Championship. He remained a key member of the Kent side that won four Championships in eight years. The only pace bowler to have taken 1,000 wickets for Kent, in total he took 1,277 first-class wickets. Too old for county cricket after the War, for some years Fielder coached at Rugby School. He died aged 72 in south London in 1949. Two years previously his next door neighbour had commited suicide by gassing himself and some of the carbon monoxide had seeped into his accommodation, severely affecting his health. Arthur Fielder