Lives in Cricket No 22 - Jack Mercer

98 Jack duly began the season well, and in the second Championship match – against Yorkshire at Neath – he bowled a superb spell in the afternoon, cutting down on his pace and mixing up cutters with his redefined in-swinger. After a pre-lunch spell of 17 overs for 25 runs, he then worked his way through the visitors’ batting during the afternoon session, taking four for 29 in a further fifteen overs. In the next game, against Worcestershire at Swansea, he fully exploited the maritime conditions at St Helen’s as the remnants of a sea fret hung over the ground when the visitors batted. He duly claimed six wickets – and might have had two more had a couple of catches not been put down – gaining lavish swing in the damp conditions, bowling Sid Martin with a ball that pitched on leg stump and uprooted his off stump, before doing the same to Cecil Pullan with an in-swinger that sent the middle stump cartwheeling away as the hapless Worcestershire batsman shouldered arms expecting the ball to go the other direction! He enjoyed a fine allround match as, late on the second day, he played a whirlwind innings of 47, striking two sixes and seven fours, besides taking 22 runs in an over off Dick Howorth with a series of boom- ing drives. Rain delayed the start on the final day, and left the visitors needing to bat out the afternoon for a draw. Jack soon found some assistance from the surface with his off-cutters, taking four for 65 and having an enthralling dual with Cyril Walters, who stoutly defended against his former colleague. Aware that Jack’s cunning bowling presented a major threat, Walters farmed the strike as the visitors held on for a draw. In mid-June Jack’s off-cutters helped Glamorgan secure a victory at Leicester, as he returned figures of 16-3-21-7 on the final morning. His clever variations of pace confounded the Leicestershire batsmen as each and every inside edge was readily snapped up by the ring of three close fielders on the leg side, with Turnbull at forward short leg plus Cyril Smart and Arnold Dyson at leg slip and backward short leg. The following week, he produced another fine new-ball spell against Essex at Chelmsford, taking four for 18 in fourteen overs, claiming the first three batsmen lbw, with each beaten by his sharp in-swing. Likewise in early July at Tunbridge Wells he delivered a superb spell when the new ball was taken, causing Kent to nosedive from 227 for four to 266 all out, as he claimed five for 16 in 7.4 overs. Then in the game at Pontypridd, Jack bowled unchanged for an hour and forty minutes to reduce Somerset to 156 for nine with his outstanding mix of in-swing and off-cutters being rewarded with six wickets. At Hastings in early August he also completed a ten-wicket haul as Glamorgan won by three wickets, reaching their target in the final over of the match when Lavis struck two sixes to win the game in dramatic fashion. Fittingly, his hundredth wicket of season came in this match at Hastings against his former colleagues and there was plenty of backslapping out on the field, plus a few drinks after play inside the professionals’ room as Jack celebrated his return to form. It really had been a summer to The swinging thirties