Lives in Cricket No 2 - Johnny Briggs

bowler at this early point in his career. However, he bowled only 100 deliveries, taking no wickets for 55 in his four seasons of first-class cricket between 1885 and 1889. He played in no first-class matches in 1886. It was in Jowett’s debut match against Surrey that Briggs hit the highest score of his career – 186 – just two days after his wedding. It was, according to contemporary reports, ‘a rare exhibition of hard and clean hitting’ and was notable in one other respect, a partnership of 173 in only 100 minutes for the last wicket with wicket-keeper Dick Pilling, which was at the time a record for first-class cricket and stands to this day as a Lancashire record. It took the introduction of Walter Read, whose mixture of lobs and round-arm deliveries brought him 100 first-class wickets in a 25-year career, before the partnership was severed with the stumping of Briggs off a Read lob. Briggs and Pilling shared a collection round the ground of £28 8s 4d (£28.42p). However, the Briggs-Pilling partnership didn’t produce a victory for the home side. Surrey – thanks to the loss of the final day of three – were able to escape with a draw. Hornby remarked: ‘I’d be married every day if I could bat as Briggs has done.’ The newspapers dubbed the game ‘the honeymoon match’. The Briggs-Pilling partnership easily surpassed the pervious highest stand for the last wicket of 128 between WilliamMudie and Tom Sewell jun for Surrey against Kent and Sussex at The Oval in 1859 before overarm bowling was legalised. It remained the highest ever tenth wicket stand for the last wicket until Richard Nicholls and William Roche for Middlesex against Kent at Lord’s in 1899. The pair took Middlesex from a perilous 55 for 9 to the relative riches of 285 all out, helping their side to an 118-run win. However, it is the oldest surviving county partnership record for any wicket, apart from the one involving W.G.Grace and William Moberley for Gloucestershire, which was set in 1876. The pair added 261 for the fifth wicket in the first innings against Yorkshire at Cheltenham. Apart from county matches in 1885, Briggs played in three of the four most important representative fixtures of the season, games which took on an even greater significance because of the fact that there was no touring team in England that year. He played, as a middle order batsman, for the North against the South on his home ground, scoring 52 in each innings, and for the Players in their two mid-season games in London against the Gentlemen. In Coming of age as a cricketer 33