All Ten: The Ultimate Bowling Feat

7 The bowlers taking all-tens cover a wide range, from the great to the journeymen, from those with long prolific careers to those with short careers, from the fast to the slow, from those bowling under or round arm to those with more conventional actions. No particular type has dominated. There are 76 names on the list (some bowlers being greedy and performing the feat more than once) but many greats are missing: no Barnes, Bedser, O’Reilly, Lillee, Murali or Warne for example. In fact Bedser, Lillee and Warne never once got past eight wickets. Spare a thought also for the 50- odd bowlers who either took the first nine wickets to fall in an innings, but not the tenth, or the only nine to fall. There are many sad stories here. For example J.T.Hearne took nine wickets in an innings no fewer than eight times without managing an all-ten. In 1896, playing for MCC against the Australians, he nearly got there, but the absence of George Giffen, who had withdrawn through illness, denied him the chance of converting nine for 73 into a full house. And playing for Sri Lanka against Zimbabwe in 2002 Murali had overnight figures of nine for 51. Next morning a simple bat-pad catch was put down off his bowling first ball, and with Henry Olonga falling next over Jim Laker’s Test record analysis of ten for 53 was safe. Given cricket’s vast literature it is surprising that nobody has written a book about the game’s most famous bowling feat, hence this attempt to chronicle each occurrence. I have concentrated mainly on the match (and particularly the innings) in which the all-ten was taken - and added something on some of the more noteworthy of the bowlers’ victims. I have also briefly summarised each bowler’s career. The lives of the more famous bowlers will already be familiar to aficionados, but some bowlers are less well known, and I think it is important to include brief career information both for completeness and to give context. A few bowlers have taken ten wickets in an innings in first-class matches which were not eleven-a-side. I have excluded these, both to save some space and also because I don’t think they really count as ‘all-ten’. Apologies therefore in particular to William (F.W.) Lillywhite who took ten second- innings wickets for Players against Gentlemen at Lord’s in 1837 and would have been the first entry in this book if all instances of ten wickets in an innings had been included. As the Gentlemen had 16 men (albeit one was absent hurt) I don’t think he should feel too aggrieved. You will however read about nephew James later in the book. Unless otherwise stated all figures refer to first-class cricket. All matches described involved six-ball overs with the following exceptions: England and Wales: matches before 1894 (four balls), between 1894 and 1899 (five balls) and in 1939 (eight balls). Australia: eight balls except 1883/84 (four balls). The match scores have been taken from the excellent CricketArchive website. A few scores contain minor discrepancies that it has not been possible to resolve. Also in a few cases full information is not available about bowling analyses, fall of wickets, the names of umpires or captains, or who won the toss. Captains are indicated by * and wicketkeepers by +.