Famous Cricketers No 89 - F.S.Jackson

August he demolished Kent at Canterbury, returning match figures of 12 for 91. If his form had been unspectacular for long periods by his own standards, he finished the year second in the Yorkshire batting averages, and topped the bowling list. In 1896 the Australians were in England, and Jackson was one of five Yorkshire batsmen to score over 1,000 runs in the Championship. The highlights of Jackson’s season were Championship centuries against Warwickshire, Middlesex and Sussex, and a heroic unbeaten knock of 95 against the Australians at Sheffield Park. Heroic because it was later determined he had sustained two cracked ribs the previous day, courtesy of Ernest Jones. Notwithstanding his injuries, Jackson turned out for Yorkshire the following day at Bristol. In the First Test at Lord’s as close of play drew near Jackson hoisted George Giffen into the outfield, where, but for his being impeded by spectators, Joe Darling might have caught him out. Jackson was already ‘walking’, he stopped, spoke with the Australian captain, took guard again and lifted the next ball down the ground into the hands of Joe Darling. And walked. Yes, it was a different age, and perhaps cricketers were different, too. Less than two weeks before the Third Test at the Oval Jackson damaged a finger attempting to take a return catch from W.H.Lockwood. Before the Test he had an 1890s-style fitness test - satisfying himself he could hold a bat - and declared himself fit. On a rain-ruined wicket he opened for his country for the first time and top-scored with 45. That autumn Jackson embarked on a career in politics, standing for and being elected to Leeds Council. Although he had not yet sacrificed his cricket to business, soldiery and politics, aged 26, his intentions were clear. By 1897 Jackson’s style of captaincy - frequently exercised due to Lord Hawke’s lumbago - remained what it had been in his Cambridge days. Nobody had any doubt who was in charge when Stanley Jackson captained a side. What had changed was that, in his own mind at least, he no longer regarded himself as a strike bowler on a good wicket. Consequently, if his captaincy had a fault, it was that he under-bowled himself. In the first two months of the 1897 season (in 14 matches) he bowled only 168 5-ball overs and took only 9 wickets. Lord Hawke had a higher opinion of his lieutenant’s bowling - in the remainder of the Championship campaign he took 56 wickets in 11 matches. In the winter of 1897/98 Jackson again declined the chance to tour Australia. When the season of 1898 began, his best form seemed elusive with only a solitary fifty in his first nine matches. Then, against Middlesex at Lord’s, he struck the richest vein of runs he had ever known. Between 16th June and 25th July he scored 979 runs, including five centuries at an average of 75.30. In the middle of this run he claimed his 500th first-class wicket in his 186th game, at Headingley against Nottinghamshire. Finally, in the penultimate match of the season, he completed the double for the only time in his career. In May 1899 Jackson was elected to the MCC Committee. That same month, in scoring 133 against his old university, he passed 10,000 runs in first-class cricket in his 208th match. In 1899 Jackson ought - rightfully by virtue of seniority as the senior amateur, and justly by virtue of common and good cricketing sense - to have succeeded W.G.Grace as captain of England. As it was, a selection panel including W.G., Lord Hawke and C.B.Fry decided (in Jackson’s absence), to appoint A.C.MacLaren who at the time, had not played in first-class cricket that year. Jackson must have greeted the news with incredulity. There was no outcry, W.G. had stepped down, it was the end of an era. One can only wonder at Lord Hawke’s part in the affair but it can not be coincidental that under Hawke’s captaincy 1899 was the last year in which Jackson fully committed himself to a Championship campaign. 6