Lives in Cricket No 2 - Johnny Briggs

Briggs – he took 170 White Rose wickets at less than 16 runs each in matches between the neighbouring counties – and it was in the August Bank Holiday game against the Tykes at Manchester that Briggs performed the ‘match double’ of 100 runs and ten wickets. He had achieved the feat against Sussex at Old Trafford in 1890 and later against Surrey at The Oval. He came mighty close in the match against Sussex at Old Trafford in 1888, scoring one and 126 not out and taking 9-88 in the only innings in which he bowled. In the Roses match, Briggs scored 115 and had match figures of 13-209. With no tourists to play during the summer, the sequence continued into the winter of 1892/93 and Briggs remained in England with the only tour leaving these shores an all-amateur side under the stewardship of Lord Hawke which went off to play in India and Ceylon. The following season – 1893 – another Roses match provided another highlight in Briggs’ career. It happened at Old Trafford in August 1893. It was the lowest-scoring games in the history of the series and still retains the record for the lowest aggregate number of runs in a completed championship match in which all 40 wickets fell. Sydney Crossfield won the toss and decided to bat. Even by normal circumspect Roses standards it was slow going and Lancashire were always struggling against the accuracy of the Yorkshire attack. They managed to scramble together a total of 64 in 59.3 five-ball overs, a scoring rate of just over one an over. Roses debutant George Hirst, Peel and Ernest Smith shared the wickets between them with only three Lancashire batsmen getting into double figures. Briggs scored nought. Despite such a meagre total, Briggs bowled Lancashire to a first innings lead, his 22 five-ball overs bringing him 6 for 35. Mold grabbed the other four wickets, the pair bowling unchanged as Yorks succumbed for 58, a deficit of six runs. Lancashire fared even worse in their second innings, managing only 50 with Peel (6 for 24) and Ted Wainwright, who hadn’t been called upon to bowl in the first innings, mopping up the rest of the wickets in a remarkable return of 4 for 8. It left Yorkshire with the tricky task of scoring 57 to win in a match where scores had steadily been in decline since the first day. But they made a marvellous start with openers Arthur Sellers and Match double against Yorkshire 57