Lives in Cricket No 22 - Jack Mercer

71 they slipped back to the foot of the Championship table. The portents were there right at the start of the season when, at Fenner’s, the Cam- bridge batsmen declared in their second innings on 341 for one. Things subsequently went from bad to worse as, in all, Glamorgan won just three games and suffered twenty defeats. They might have had even more reverses, and certainly more heavy losses, had Jack not enjoyed his most productive summer, taking 145 wickets in all matches at 20.88 runs apiece – at the time, the most in a season by a Glamorgan bowler in first-class cricket. Jack’s remarkable success was not the result of any dramatic changes to his methods – just a combination of sheer hard work, perseverance, patience and putting into practice knowledge acquired in previous years about the strengths and weaknesses of certain batsmen. Like many great bowlers both before and after him, Jack had a great memory, and often set subtle traps for opposing players. The greatest difference was that he had become two bowlers in one, with an ability to swing the new ball copiously and to extract pace and lift off the surface early in an innings, before switching to a mix of cutters as the ball got older. The match with the South Africans at Pontypridd was a perfect example of his dual role, as Jack initially took four for 26 in a seventeen-over spell with the new ball, before claiming four more as he switched to off-cutters, ending with a handsome return of eight for 60. 74 On several occasions, none of the other Glamorgan bowlers were able to contain the opposition batsmen, and Jack often had to wheel away for several hours with the old ball, before having a quick breather and charging in again with a new one. Many believed that Jack was one of the best new-ball exponents in Championship cricket and his finest hour in 1929 came at Cardiff in late May as he took three wickets in his opening over against Warwickshire. The remarkable start began with Jack beating the outside edge of Norman Kilner’s bat with an away swinger, before dropping a fraction shorter with his second delivery and causing the opener to splice a catch into Alan Howard’s grateful hands at short leg. It became two in two as Len Bates edged another away swinger into the gloves of wicketkeeper Joe Hills, before Bob Wyatt nearly succumbed to the next ball as the Warwickshire man flashed outside off stump. Wyatt then shouldered arms to the fifth ball, which through its swing was called a wide, before edging another swinging delivery to John Bell at second slip. 75 It was typical of Glamorgan’s cricket in the 1920s that their batsmen were unable to capitalise on Jack’s outstanding efforts; needing 138 on the final day, they were dismissed for just 45. Admittedly, they were a batsman short as Norman Riches was nursing a badly bruised hand and could not hold a bat, but even so, they should have made a greater fist of things to register a rare home victory. Not surprisingly, there were a string of A change of captain 74 Jack prospered at Pontypridd throughout his career: in 17 matches there he took 73 wickets at 14.82. 75 In an interview with a local paper, Wyatt later described Jack’s efforts as ‘thundering good bowling.’ Western Mail , 27 May 1929.