Lives in Cricket No 2 - Johnny Briggs

no one is more qualified to give an opinion on a fellow cricketer. Of Briggs’ bowling, the good doctor had to this to say in an interview: ‘Briggs got most of his wickets with his leg breaks, especially when the ground was soft; but on good fast wickets I found the ball that gave me most trouble was the one he pitched on or just outside off stump and came in with his arm. This ball always made haste when it touched the ground and may have been a trifle faster than his ordinary slow medium.’ In the same interview, Grace remembered the time when Briggs made the ball ‘talk’: ‘In 1889 on the County Ground, Bristol, for Lancashire v Gloucestershire, he bowled as follows: Overs 16, maidens 9, runs 22, wickets 7. Five of these were clean bowled. 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.’ Grace’s recollection of the game is spot-on save for the fact that the official Lancashire scorebook records that Briggs, in fact, bowled 16.4 overs. And what about Briggs’ temperament? Grace says: ‘He was generally one of the best-tempered little fellows in the world. I remember on one occasion he was put out because his captain would not put him on, but eventually, when his turn came, he bowled his best.’ Of his batting, Grace was slightly less complimentary, saying: ‘Sometimes a very dangerous bat, but slashes and cuts immediately he gets to the wicket. Too often, caught in the slips.’ Grace was later to remark that Briggs had ‘the quickness of a cat’ when it came to fielding his own bowling. Another contemporary of Briggs, George Giffen, of Australia, was also full of praise for him after his debut Test against Giffen’s countrymen at Lord’s in 1886 – actually, it would have been hard not to be impressed by Briggs’ debut which brought him 5 for 29 in the first innings and 6 for 45 in the second. Giffen, considered by many experts to have been one of the game’s finest all-rounders, said: ‘Merry Johnny’ was then and for many years afterwards one of the most formidable of Australia’s opponents, and had he been a more reliable batsman he would, to my mind, have ranked with A.G.Steel as an all-round player next to W.G. At his best he was a very fine bowler, one who was always worrying the batsman and always had to be watched.’ Giffen had a point. Once established as a front-line bowler, Briggs was too often cavalier with the bat, trying to dominate the bowling from the very first ball he received without trying to build an innings. Of course, he came off plenty of What are we to make of him? 89