All Ten: The Ultimate Bowling Feat

88 Bart King but he finished his career with a useful average of 20.51. Tall, wiry, with powerful shoulders and long arms, King possessed considerable powers of endurance. In the final strides of his run up he held the ball above his head in both hands much like a baseball pitcher, although there was never any suggestion that he threw. A keen student of bowling technique, his most dangerous ball was the inswinger, but he could also deceive the batsman by making the ball go straight or move away a little. His stock pace was probably what we now call fast-medium. King had already twice come close to an all-ten. In September 1897 against P.F.Warner’s XI he had denied himself a tenth wicket by catching the visitors’ captain, and in 1903 against, admittedly, a weakened Lancashire side, nine might have been ten if he hadn’t been involved in running out the other batsman. In 1909 the Irish were on a short tour of North America and were captained by their wicketkeeper 41-year-old Frank Browning who was playing the final two matches of an 11-match career. A barrister, Browning would be killed in Dublin during the 1916 Easter Uprising. Ireland only had a day’s acclimatisation in Philadelphia, and it showed. Their match against the Philadelphians began in cool, cloudy conditions, although the sun would emerge later. The Merion Cricket Club had been founded in 1865 (and proudly celebrated its 150th Anniversary in 2015). It had been unlucky with clubhouse fires but now possessed an impressive brick and stone structure. King opened the bowling on a green pitch with H.V.’Ranji’ Hordern, who was studying dentistry at the University of Pennsylvania. Despite bowling 11 overs against weak batting Hordern would fail to strike. However he would later bowl his leg spin for his native Australia with great success, taking 46 wickets in seven pre-war Tests. The Philadelphia captain Percy Clark also went unrewarded. Finishing his career just one short of 200 wickets, like King he was a fine exponent of swing and like King he would live into his nineties. Apart from a brilliant catch by Harold Haines at slip, King needed no help from his fielders. The Irish innings, such as it was, was held together by George Morrow who emulated Alec Hearne’s earlier feat by carrying his bat throughout an all-ten (although he was a little fortunate as King bowled him with his only no-ball). This was Morrow’s only fifty in an eight- match first-class career. A sizeable crowd had built up and he, and of course King, were enthusiastically acclaimed. Three Irish batsmen failed to score, including John Aston who would complete a pair on debut in the second innings (bowled King again). Aston would also be bowled twice by King when the two sides met again a week later, but at least he finally broke his first-class duck in the second innings. That might have been the end of a forgettable career, but 16 years later he played twice for Ireland, making a fifty against Scotland and achieving another duck against Wales, bowled by Jack Mercer (later himself to take an all-ten) but taking five wickets in an innings with his medium pace. Pat Hone also made a (first- ball) duck on debut. He later wrote Cricket in Ireland ; published in 1955