Lives in Cricket No 2 - Johnny Briggs

matches and in first-class matches against Derbyshire and Leicestershire, outside that competition. In Lancashire’s championship games, he and Mold were once again almost the only bowling resources employed. Between them the pair sent down 1,799 five-ball overs and took 241 wickets; twelve other bowlers bowled 466 overs and managed only 34 wickets, the best of them taking nine in all. Not surprisingly Lancashire were not in contention for the title, but they did tie their match with the champions, Surrey, at The Oval in mid-August. This was the only tied match played by Briggs in his long career, and Wisden described it as ‘the sensational match of the London season’. Briggs took 13 wickets in the match, but had little involvement in its final overs as Lancashire’s tail-enders struggled to reach 74 on a wet pitch against the might of Tom Richardson and Bill Lockwood, who weeks later were Briggs’ teammates in Stoddart’s side in Australia. At one point Lancashire, on 26 for 7, looked a beaten side, but Alfred Tinsley and wicket-keeper Charles Smith turned things round with the score progressing to 62 for 7 before the last three wickets went down for 12 runs. The low point of Briggs’ season was the way the fates – and in particular the Manchester weather – conspired against him during his benefit match, the long-awaited three-day Whitsuntide Bank Holiday game against Yorkshire at Old Trafford, starting on 14 May. There were 15,000 present at the scheduled start, but they were made to wait while the pitch was inspected. Because of the importance of the game, Lancashire had prepared two wickets, one of which had been covered by oil-sheets whenever there had been rain about; the other being left to the vagaries of the weather. Having looked at the covered wicket, Lord Hawke, the Yorkshire captain, objected to the surface. According to W.E.Howard, the Lancashire pavilion attendant, in his book ‘Fifty Years’ Cricket: Reminiscences of a Non-Player’, published in 1928: ‘When his lordship came into the dressing room after inspecting the ground, he remarked to me: ‘I’m very sorry for Briggs, but I have come here to play county cricket and not for a benefit match’. Hawke wanted a new pitch to be made ready as quickly as possible, but many critics felt it would provide a similarly difficult surface for batting. Hornby won the toss and chose to bat in front of a crowd which had by then grown to more than 22,000. In hindsight, it was the wrong decision. Lancashire, who started disastrously losing their first four wickets without scoring, were bowled out for 50 with Mixed benefit 63