Famous Cricketers No 89 - F.S.Jackson

with the bat. C.W.Wright turned one day to Lord Hawke and remarked, ruefully: “Take Jacker; when he gets to the wicket he is already in up to the knees and the bowlers have to dig him out.” Although sporadically he scored as freely as any man in county cricket, he reserved his most indomitable performances for the Test Match arena, for those times when his side was in most need of his particular gifts. He became renowned as ‘the man’ for a crisis. The batsman most likely to play a long innings when an Australian attack was rampant, or the man to hold the line on a wet wicket. With the ball he became the man his captain put on to break dangerous partnerships, the bowler whose unerring length and direction could be confidently relied upon to frustrate, torment and finally defeat the best batsmen. Like many amateurs, Jackson’s commitments outside the game limited the amount of cricket he was able to play, and, after he came down from Cambridge, effectively ruled out touring overseas. This meant that it was only possible for him to join one tour abroad, that of Lord Hawke’s team to India and Ceylon in the winter of 1892/93. In 1903 he was obliged to decline the England captaincy because he was unable to tour Australia that winter. His first-class career spanned the years 1890 to 1907, although he played only one match in 1900, missed the whole of the 1901 season when away in South Africa fighting the Boers, and played just four matches in the 1906 and 1907 seasons. Had he played continuously and been available to tour abroad he would probably have played in well over five hundred matches; instead he appeared in 309 first-class fixtures, in which he scored 15,901 runs at an average of 33.83, claimed 774 wickets at 20.37 apiece, and held 195 catches in the field. Winston Churchill was Jackson’s fag at Harrow. Unlike Archie MacLaren, his junior by a year, Stanley Jackson never bragged about the fact. At Harrow on variable pitches Jackson’s bowling flourished, but at first his batting - still a little impetuous, over-confident - stuttered. But in the Eton - Harrow encounter at Lord’s in 1888 he scored a rapid 59 and took 5 second innings wickets in a comprehensive victory. He captained the school in 1889, averaging 45.33 (408 runs) with the bat and 14.56 (29 wickets) with the ball. Stanley Jackson became a freshman of Trinity College, Cambridge, in October 1889. His exploits at Harrow had earned him the soubriquet ‘Lord Harrow’. As at Harrow, his main energies were only rarely devoted to matters academic at Trinity. At Harrow he had done enough to matriculate, at Trinity he gained his B.A., without ever threatening to achieve an honours degree. Jackson the bowler progressed smoothly from the school game to the first-class arena. On damp early season wickets he took 25 wickets in the first four matches in which he bowled, including a dozen against Yorkshire. His progress as a batsman was slower, although from the outset his obduracy in adversity was evident. Against Yorkshire he registered his first duck in ‘big games’, and it was not until three matches later, his seventh first-class, he notched his first half-century. Of his debut season in the first-class game James Lillywhite rather uncharitably observed that he had ‘hardly sustained his school reputation.’ Wisden , on the other hand, noted that of that year’s Cambridge freshmen he was ‘probably the best cricketer’. Before the 1891 season Jackson was elected Honorary Secretary of the Cambridge University Cricket Club. His season followed a similar pattern to 1890. Few big scores with the bat, regular, and now and then, decisive contributions with the ball. He claimed 10 wickets in the match against Yorkshire, scored 62 against the might of Surrey, and was invited to play for the Gentlemen at the Oval in July. When a lady had complimented him for his batting in the 1888 Eton-Harrow Match at Lord’s Jackson had replied: “Yes, it is jolly, isn’t it? Not so much for one’s self, you know, but it will give the guv’nor such a lift!” No doubt he took the accolade of the Cambridge captaincy in the same spirit. 4