Lives in Cricket No 2 - Johnny Briggs

Chapter Seven Sharing the Championship ‘In 1889 on the County Ground, Bristol, I remember he was quite unplayable and I preferred to keep at the end Mold bowled at, and was not out 37 out of 87.’ W.G.Grace The following campaign, 1889, Briggs once again led the way among the Lancashire bowlers with 103 wickets at 11.84, helping Lancashire to a share of the championship with Surrey and their old protagonists Nottinghamshire. He had 11 five-wicket hauls and three 10-wicket matches. But by now Briggs’ workload had been lessened considerably by the emergence of the Northamptonshire-born fast bowler Arthur Mold, who in his first first-class season at Old Trafford, took 92 wickets at an average of 12.32, not all that far behind Briggs’ own contribution. Briggs sent down 3,756 deliveries for the county in 1889, but in the previous two seasons his totals were 4,167 (1888) and 5,521 (1887). With the bat, Briggs scored 439 runs for the county at an average of 20.90 with two half-centuries. Lancashire had the 48 Briggs’ bowling partner Mold was a highly contentious figure in an era when suspect bowling actions were becoming an increasing problem. Wisden had thought that he should ‘take care’ with his bowling action as early as 1888. There was no doubting his speed and his movement off the pitch – he was, in fact, a perfect foil for Briggs – but his action came under closer and closer scrutiny and he was restricted to only three Test appearances. In 1900 he was no balled by Australian-born umpire Jim Phillips and a meeting of county captains at the end of that season voted 11-1 that his action was illegal. In the following season, he was no-balled 16 times in ten overs in Lancashire’s match against Somerset at Manchester, again by Phillips and although no other umpire called Mold, he drifted out of first-class cricket, ending his playing days in the Northamptonshire leagues. He spent his retirement shooting, running a pub and looking after his mother.