Lives in Cricket No 2 - Johnny Briggs

England at Lord’s in early June, which marked MCC’s centenary. Briggs played for the England XI, opening the bowling with Lohmann, and took seven wickets in the match which resulted in an innings victory for England. Briggs’ wickets included W.G.Grace – caught and bowled – in MCC’s second innings. He also played in both Gentlemen versus Players matches in London – at Lord’s and The Oval – in mid-July. Now established as England’s best slow bowler – Lohmann was considered to be ‘brisk medium’ – Briggs was soon on his way back to Australia on one of Shaw and Shrewsbury’s Antipodean sorties. So two months after Briggs had appeared in Lancashire’s last match of the season against Yorkshire at Old Trafford, he was on the field again in Australia. This time, though, there was a problem – there were two separate tours of Australia. Bizarrely, they both set off on the same ship, the Iberia from Tilbury and Plymouth. The touring party which included Briggs was organised by Shrewsbury and Shaw together with the trustees of the Sydney Cricket Club. The other, usually referred to as G.F.Vernon’s XI, was organised through the Melbourne Cricket Ground – a fairly early example of cricket shooting itself in the foot or rather both feet. The two sides had the normal complement of 13 players, with a mix of professionals and amateurs, but it was Vernon’s party which seems to have been thought of as more respectable than Shaw and Shrewsbury’s side, even though the latter was captained by Aubrey Smith. The fact that two sides set sail for Australia underlines the absence of a central cricket authority in either England or Australia. The latter had some excuse – she consisted of six colonies plus various territories, each governed separately. Afterwards Wisden commented that the twin tours were ‘a piece of folly that will not be perpetrated again’. Shaw and Shrewsbury 40 Taking a hundred wickets for the first time Briggs bowled 831 maiden four-ball overs in 1887, the most he bowled in a season. Even when overs had six balls, he got through his overs incredibly quickly. Off his short run, which usually consisted of just two paces, Briggs had been timed at ‘just over 44 seconds’ in a match at Old Trafford, according to a newspaper cutting from 1900. In the over timed, five of the balls went straight back to the bowler and the other went to Arthur Mold at mid-on. Another spectator – ‘a clerical gentleman’ – had timed a Briggs’ over at 47.5 seconds. Muttiah Muralitharan can bowl a maiden in less than two minutes, but not by much.