Lives in Cricket No 22 - Jack Mercer

43 amateurs from the Emerald Isle found his swing and seam bowling too much of a handful as he took seven for 11 in the space of eleven overs. The match in late August with Warwickshire at Swansea saw Jack reach the seasonal milestone of 100 first-class wickets for the first time in his career as he trapped Bob Wyatt leg before. Johnnie Clay generously sent a couple of bottles of champagne into the professionals’ changing-room so that Jack and his colleagues could celebrate his achievement. Jack’s eventual tally of 105 wickets at just 20 runs apiece was very impressive, especially given the fact that in the previous six seasons his overall total had been 92 wickets. Eager to stress that his achievements had not been a flash in the plan he told the Glamorgan captain: ‘Don’t worry Johnnie, I’ll take 100 wickets for Glamorgan again next year!’ These proved to be prophetic words as Jack proceeded to take 136 wickets and ended up second to the great Wilfred Rhodes in the national bowling averages. 1926 was certainly a coming of age for Jack as a bowler as he took five wickets in an innings on a dozen occasions and twice bagged ten-wicket match returns. Right from the outset 1926 was quite a different sort of season, with the first innovation being a two-day match in May against Monmouthshire as the Glamorgan authorities tested the facilities at Ynysangharad Park prior to the inaugural Championship match in Pontypridd against Derbyshire: this was the first game away from the traditional venues of Cardiff and Swansea. Another change was the inauguration of the South Wales and Monmouthshire League as the leading clubs forsook their friendlies for a more competitive structure which could only be for the benefit of Glamorgan in the long run. 47 It meant that besides cricket, racing and the fair sex, there was a new topic for the discussions in the professionals’ changing-room with banter and mickey-taking about whether the new competition would be won by a club from the west or east of the county. But like the rest of the population, the main talking-point in April 1926 was the deterioration in labour relations which culminated in the General Strike which lasted for ten days from 3 May. With the railway network in turmoil, Glamorgan hired an open-air charabanc to transport the players and their erstwhile scorer for their matches at The Oval and Leicester, and on their journey there was plenty of chat about the strike. The Trades Union Congress had a fervent supporter in Dai Davies, the middle-order batsman who had previously worked at the Llanelli steel works. Several of the other professionals had sympathies with the coal miners whose wage reduction and worsening conditions had been at the root of the unrest, and for once, cricket was barely talked about on their journeys. When the strike ended, it was back to the train – with the amateurs in first-class and the professionals in second-class carriages – as Glamorgan travelled to Derbyshire where Jack achieved another five-wicket haul, this time on a sluggish wicket at Chesterfield before a composed century Turning the corner 47 Alan Meredith, A Hard Slog: A History of the South Wales Cricket Association , privately printed, 1987.