Lives in Cricket No 2 - Johnny Briggs

Trafford, and Warwickshire at Liverpool, and were playing their fourth successive home game when they took on Worcestershire at Old Trafford, starting on 24 May. According to MacLaren, the wicket was ‘a trifle soft on top but firm underneath, and which steadily improved under a drying wind with very little sun’. The crowd, which numbered 7,000 on the first day, was in good heart, celebrating that day the 81st birthday of Queen Victoria. The Worcestershire captain Harry Foster – one of seven brothers all of whom played for the county – decided to bat first. MacLaren felt that winning the toss was neither here nor there and wasn’t particularly perturbed when Foster called correctly. Soon Briggs had the visitors in a spin and Worcestershire were quickly 6 for 3. By lunchtime Briggs had taken the first seven wickets and throughout the interval the crowd was wondering whether Briggs would become the eighth player to take all ten and the second Lancashire player to achieve the feat. He assured his captain that he would do it to celebrate the Queen’s birthday, but for a while it didn’t look as though he would. And there was audible displeasure from the home crowd when Mold and Cuttell each came close to taking a wicket. Briggs returned to the attack, but Albert Bird and Robert Burrows batted with more confidence than any of their team-mates and it looked as though Briggs might be denied. Gradually, though, Briggs worked his way through the remaining batsmen, clean bowling both Burrows and Bird. The final wicket came off the penultimate ball of Briggs 29th over and his analysis in the scorebook read: 28.5-7-55-10. Briggs took 3 for 62 in Worcestershire’s second innings as Lancashire completed a five-wicket win. As MacLaren recalled: ‘The last wicket took a lot of getting, but when Bird, who played the best cricket of the lot, jumped out to drive, and then hesitating missed the ball in playing back, and the ball hit the sticks, Johnny’s bashful smile as he turned round for his sweater was well worth seeing.’ ‘It was all the more creditable owing to the fact that wicket was never difficult. He has on two previous occasions taken nine wickets, once against the Australians at Scarborough, when the last man was run out, but this was the first occasion on which he has taken the lot. Johnny we are proud of you.’ MacLaren’s memory must have been playing tricks with him as Briggs had taken nine in an innings on three occasions, recording 9 for 29 against Derbyshire at Derby in 1885, and 9 for 88 against Sussex at Old Trafford, 1888, in addition to Seizure at the Music Hall 83