Lives in Cricket No 22 - Jack Mercer

74 cruised to an innings victory. 77 It spoke volumes for Jack’s never-say-die attitude that a week after the sorry episode at Nottingham, he obtained his hundredth wicket of the season. By this time, though, the burden of shouldering the brunt of the attack was starting to tell, and as he approached the century mark, Jack started to experience further discomfort in his left calf. Losing their best bowler for the rest of the season was the last thing Glamorgan could afford to do, so he missed the visit to Hull, opting instead to rest his weary limbs rather than bowling to the Yorkshire batsmen. Fortified by his short break, Jack then took the first five wickets in the South Africans’ innings when they visited Swansea, and the following week, he revelled once again in the sea air at Weston-super-Mare as he bagged a further eight victims against Somerset. However, on the final morning at Weston he came down with what appeared to be a virus, with a high temperature and runny nose. After travelling home with the rest of the side and its supporters on a Campbell’s steamer, Jack immediately sought out the club doctor, who told him that he might have contracted pleurisy and advised him not to play the following day at Pontypridd against Leicestershire. It turned out only to be a heavy cold and Jack was given the all-clear to resume playing later in the week. Jack’s mood was lifted at first by this news, as he had initially feared he would not get the opportunity of claiming the nine victims he needed to break Frank Ryan’s club record of 133 wickets. But Jack’s delight started to turn to despondency as news filtered through from Pontypridd about the wicket being a bowler’s paradise. Jack began to think about how many wickets he had missed taking at Ynysangharad Park, and his mood was not lightened when he heard that George Geary had taken all ten wickets in Glamorgan’s second innings, with his figures of ten for 18, at the time the best-ever innings return in first-class cricket. Fortunately, Glamorgan’s next match was against Sussex at Swansea and, on one of his favourite grounds and against his old county, it was fitting that he created a new Glamorgan record at the St Helen’s ground. It proved quite an eventful first day as twenty wickets fell, with Jack taking five wickets with his swing bowling as the visitors were dismissed for 151. The following morning, he was amongst the wickets again, claiming three with the new ball in the Sussex second innings, before James Langridge offered stout resistance and, together with the lower order, helped Sussex build up a decent lead. Once again injuries blighted the Glamorgan attack, with Johnnie Clay being unable to bowl, but Jack valiantly returned to the attack and to everyone’s delight, he bowled Jack Wagener with a fine off-cutter to break the club record. A change of captain 77 Morgan recovered from his hamstring twinge to play in the next match, against Leicestershire at Loughborough, when the captaincy baton returned to Trevor Arnott. In all, he made five first-class appearances before emigrating to the United States, entering the diplomatic service and becoming controller of British ‘information services’ in the United States in the Second World War.