Lives in Cricket No 22 - Jack Mercer

129 Chapter Twenty-One A scorer’s lot Throughout his distinguished playing career Jack was renowned as being a raconteur, something of a wit and more than a bit of a charmer. He had a fund of stories to draw upon and if he wanted, as was often the case, he could draw upon a range of magic tricks to impress and amaze all of those in his company. As a long-standing member of the Magic Circle, he kept up his interest in these subtle and deft arts and was always delighted to pick up a new trick. The sleight of hand which had been used with such great effect on cricket balls the length and breadth of England and Wales also gained a certain notoriety when Jack was invited to perform a magic trick for a television advert in the early 1960s. His identity, though, was withheld as the cameras focused instead on Jack’s hands, wearing white gloves, as he performed the trick for the advert. ‘Here’s the trick you’ve seen on TV,’ Jack would gleefully tell county colleagues, young relatives or others who were in his company as he put on the gloves again to repeat the feat. Some in his audience though were unsure if it was actually Jack who was performing the trick in the advert, but they liked him too much to ask if it really was! In 1963, at the age of 70, Jack switched from being Northamptonshire’s coach to being the county’s scorer and his conversation and bonhomie were soon welcomed in scorers’ boxes and press rooms at cricket grounds all over the country. 115 It wasn’t long before his good humour was shin- ing brightly in his new role, with Frank Tyson remembering how he would walk over to the Northamptonshire dressing-room at each interval to read out the bowling figures, rather than sending them across via the twelfth man. As Tyson later recalled, ‘Jack would add a postscript of “Well bowled” after every set of figures, no matter how good or bad they were.’ By 1967, his service to his adopted county had reached twenty-one seasons of scoring and coaching, and he was awarded a testimonial which raised £1,350, equivalent to the purchasing power of £18,300 in 2011. The Northamptonshire players always looked forward to his arrival in their dressing room, but on one occasion against Sussex at Hove in 1980, Jack was later leaving the scorers’ box than usual at the close of play after the home team had rattled up the small matter of 482 for three. ‘Where’ve you been, Jack?’ was the question greeting his belated arrival at the pavilion. 115 Jack wasn’t entirely new to this role, it has to be said. He had scored in a fair few Northamptonshire Second Eleven matches in the Minor Counties Championship from 1950 to 1959, and in games in the Second Eleven Championship from 1959 onwards.