Lives in Cricket No 22 - Jack Mercer

9 than any other Glamorgan player.’ 2 At 5 feet 11 inches tall, Jack was not a towering bowler, but he possessed a good physique and leonine stamina, reputed to have been based on plenty of swimming as a child, and, as an adult, lengthy daily walks each winter along the seafront near his home in Seaford, during which he would throw pebbles into the sea in order to keep his right arm strong. Like other great bowlers he had a good memory and remembered the strengths and weaknesses of countless county batsmen. An example came in the mid-1930s when Glamorgan’s match with Yorkshire was covered by BBC radio. In the commentary team was Percy Fender, the former Surrey and England player, who was baffled at how Jack kept bowling out-swingers to Errol Holmes whilst keeping a fielder positioned at deep square leg. But no sooner had Fender shared his view with the listeners, Holmes miscued a pull against Jack and sent the ball lobbing in a great arc straight to the man at deep square leg. ‘I told you he was a cunning rascal,’ was Fender’s on-air response! Jack was also superstitious and would frequently put a threepenny bit in his back pocket, believing that it brought him good luck. It led to a bit of leg-pulling, but on one occasion at Swansea, it seemed to do the trick. Jack had bowled without any luck before lunch against the Gloucestershire batsmen, so he decided to put his lucky charm in his pocket for the afternoon session. Remarkably, Jack proceeded to take seven wickets and he duly kept the coin in his pocket for the next few matches. Despite his fine haul, Jack’s colleagues continued to pull his leg about the coin’s powers. ‘I’m out of luck myself,’ said Arnold Dyson, the opening batsman, ‘so let’s see what good it does for me,’ putting the coin into his trouser pocket before going out to bat. To Dyson’s delight, he posted his first half-century for several weeks, and on returning to the dressing-room he turned to the smiling Jack and said, ‘Thanks – I now believe in fairies as well!’ Jack was genial and level-headed, rarely getting rattled by the ill-fortune that frequently came Glamorgan’s way. As Raymond Robertson-Glasgow wrote, ‘if there were a prize for continued excellence of skill and temper, surely Mercer would be on the shortest list of candidates. When hope was gone, he could still smile, when the seam was gone, he could still make the ball swerve.’ 3 Jack was also a capable tail-end batsman who on several occasions produced some brief, but ferocious spells of hitting. An example came in his final summer with Glamorgan when he scored 31 off an over – which, in 1939, spanned eight balls – delivered by Dick Howorth of Worcestershire. Cultured slogging was the description by one critic of Jack’s batting style. A bit harsh maybe, but he stood firm-footed, and flayed the Worcestershire bowler all around the Arms Park, including four Introduction 2 Roy Webber and Kenneth M.Arnott, Glamorgan C.C.C. , 1921-1947, Cricket Book Society, 1948. 3 R.C.Robertson-Glasgow, op cit .