Lives in Cricket No 22 - Jack Mercer

56 Chapter Eight Rain and rumours Saturday, 12 March 1927 saw Jack and the rest of the MCC touring party depart Bombay after their highly successful tour of the subcontinent. The day before their departure the MCC party were guests of honour at yet another lavish dinner, held at the Byculla Club in Bombay – an honour accorded to few but Governors and Viceroys. It gave the tourists a chance to thank their Indian hosts formally before boarding the P and O liner S.S.Ranpura bound for Tilbury. On their long homeward voyage, Jack and the other tourists were able to recharge their batteries after what had been a long and demanding tour – a point which Gilligan made in his farewell speech at the Byculla Club, during which he also personally thanked Jack for making himself readily available to join the party at short notice and for fitting so easily and amicably into the rest of the party. Indeed, Jack could take a lot of pride from what he achieved during his time in the subcontinent. He had appeared in fourteen of the eighteen first-class matches played by MCC after he caught up with them; he had achieved a respectable haul of 42 wickets at 21.52 runs apiece. Had he been on the entire tour, his tally would surely have been higher, but it is doubtful if he would have surpassed Maurice Tate’s superb return, from 28 matches, of 116 wickets at 13.78! During the voyage back through the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean, Gilligan spent time in his cabin, writing up notes for the MCC mandarins, advising them about the standard of play and wickets in the subcontinent in addition to making recommendations for the selectors who would be choosing the parties for tours the following winter. Gilligan was able to write some favourable comments about Jack – this came as no surprise, in contrast to the shock Jack experienced one morning when he read in an English newspaper that his name had been linked with a return to Sussex. By the time he arrived back in Britain, rumours were rife that Glamorgan would lose Jack’s services. Nothing though could have been further from the truth, as Jack told reporters in South Wales when he joined the rest of the county’s professionals for the pre-season training at Cardiff. ‘I have never considered breaking my association with Glamorgan,’ Jack told the assembled writers, ‘and I am very happy with the county of my adoption for whom I am bound for at least another two years. The first intimation I had that a rumour was going the rounds was one morning on board ship on my way home from India. It was a great surprise to me. I have not the slightest