Lives in Cricket No 22 - Jack Mercer

49 Chapter Seven A passage to India Not many cricketers have heard of their selection for an MCC tour whilst at Longchamp races, but that is exactly what happened to Jack Mercer in the autumn of 1926 whilst visiting the Paris racecourse on a trip to France. Jack read about his call-up in the continental edition of the Daily Mail : he headed back from the racecourse to his hotel to find that a telegram had arrived from Lord’s confirming that his services were required in India. Injuries and fatigue had affected other players on the inaugural MCC tour to the subcontinent, led by Jack’s former Sussex colleague Arthur Gilligan. ‘Arthur and the boys need you,’ was the gist of the message which Jack received before hastily returning to England and then heading off by trains and ships to Bombay to join the tour which spanned 34 matches from mid-October until late February. 51 With India yet to secure Test status, the tour was thought of at Lord’s as a fact-finding mission allowing the touring players and officials a chance to assess the standard of wickets in the subcontinent, and perhaps a chance to encourage the formation of an overall cricket organization for India. It might have had another Glamorgan member, but Trevor Arnott, like several others, opted for a shorter MCC tour to the Caribbean. Nevertheless, a decent enough party was assembled for what, in the words of Bob Wyatt ‘would ensure reasonable success on the field through an exhausting programme and provide the social stamina to survive the overwhelming hospitality pressed upon them.’ 52 The tour began on 24 September, with seven of the party departing from Tilbury on board a P and O liner, S.S.Narkunda , before being joined in Marseilles by the remainder, who had opted to go overland to the south of France to avoid rough weather in the Bay of Biscay. The full party – all in first-class berths – travelled via the Suez Canal to Bombay, arriving on 15 October. Three days later, the first match took place, after another sea journey, at Karachi, against a combined Parsi and Muslim XI, and so began the sequence of playing, junketing and travelling, much of it in searing heat, interspersed with occasional days of shooting, fishing and 51 Thirty of these matches, including 21 of two-day duration, are now regarded as first-class. See Peter Griffiths (ed), Complete First-Class Match List, Volume 2, 1914/15 to 1944/45 , ACS Publications, 1997. The matches included fixtures at grounds now in Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Myanmar. The fixture list was not finalised until after the touring party had set off from London. 52 R.E.S.Wyatt, Three Straight Sticks , Stanley Paul, 1951. Although Wyatt does not mention the reasons for this hospitality, it would appear that the Europeans who ran cricket from Calcutta and Bombay, and the various princes whose fiefdoms were visited, were all competing with one another to establish the best relationship with MCC, whom they thought might have influence in establishing an India-wide cricket authority.