All Ten: The Ultimate Bowling Feat

94 Frank Tarrant Victoria and obtained employment as a ground bowler for the Melbourne Cricket Club he knew that if he wanted to make cricket his profession he had to play in England. A touring Pelham Warner, impressed with what he saw in the nets, arranged for him to be taken on the Lord’s groundstaff so that he could qualify for Middlesex. Gradually coming to terms with English conditions Tarrant’s performances improved each year before he leapt into prominence in 1907 with 1,552 runs and 183 wickets (curiously exactly the same number of wickets as fellow left-armers George Hirst and Colin Blythe). This was his first double, a feat he was to repeat (comfortably) in each of the following seven seasons. Tarrant nearly achieved an all-ten at Bristol in 1907 when, having taken the first nine Gloucestershire second innings wickets for 41 on a treacherous pitch, the last one fell to J.T. Hearne. There was plenty of time left (the match finished at twenty to two) and Middlesex won by an innings. I wonder if Tarrant felt a bit aggrieved? The First World War marked the end of Tarrant’s English career; at the end of the 1914 season he moved to India, making it his base for most of the next 30 or so years, interspersed with visits to Australia. Wealthy princes had begun to provide coaching opportunities in India and as Tarrant had spent his past few winters coaching there it was a natural move. During the War he played a number of first-class matches in India with considerable success, but none more so than when he played for the Maharaja of Cooch- Behar’s XI at the Deccan Gymkhana Ground in August 1918. First-class cricket in India was still in its relative infancy, although India was the only country where first-class cricket was played in every wartime season. In 1918/19 the season amounted to eight matches of which Tarrant played in four. Indian princes had begun to realise that involvement with the British national game could help further their political power, hence during 1917/18 and 1918/19 the Maharaja’s team played a number of games now regarded as first-class, including two against a team representing the Governor of Bombay (Lord Willingdon). The Deccan Gymkhana is one of the oldest sporting institutions in India; initially a cricket club it slowly expanded to provide facilities for many sports. The Gymkhana Ground was used regularly for cricket from the end of the 19th century until the 1920s, mainly for the annual Europeans against Parsees match. It has been little used since for first-class cricket, although it is still used for other matches. The Maharaja’s team in August 1918 mainly relied on two players: Tarrant and county colleague Harry Lee, who was coaching at Cooch Behar College and would go on to have a long and successful career when he returned to England. The rest of the side were home-based players whose first- class careers would amount to a handful of unsuccessful matches each - most notably Susanta Ghose who in this his only first-class match batted once, at number eleven, making one run, and did not bowl. Although his Lordship’s eleven did not include anybody of the quality of Tarrant and Lee, the talent that it did have was spread a bit more evenly throughout the team, some of whom would have at least some success on the cricket field.