Lives in Cricket No 22 - Jack Mercer

92 that the wicket was to blame for the failure of their experiment, and on leaving the city-centre tavern they made a detour back into the Arms Park ground and expressed their contempt about the lethargic surface by urinating on the wicket. The following morning, there was plenty of chatter in the professionals’ changing-room about the events of the night before and Jack was upset to hear how things had escalated after he had gone home. A posse of pressmen who had overheard the heated discussions the previous night were also disappointed to find no signs whatsoever on the pitch when the covers were removed. Turnbull then took his score to 205 before he was caught at fine leg attempting another boundary. His side ended on 502 and Nottinghamshire batted again; Jack and his new-ball partner Ted Glover produced a lively spell of bowling as the visitors had to defend stoutly to stave off what could have been an unlikely defeat. Their plight pleased the Glamorgan skipper who, with an impish grin, asked Jack and Ted if they would like to bowl a spell of leg-theory to give the Nottinghamshire side a taste of their own medicine. After what he had said the night before, Jack politely declined, but Ted agreed and, to applause from several home supporters, he unleashed some Bodyline bowling of his own. At the end of the game there were the usual handshakes between the professionals, but rather than linger and have a chat, the visitors quickly made their way from the ground. This was not the last time that Bodyline dominated events and discussions, as during the winter months, Larwood, Voce and most of the other England bowlers used the tactic during the winter tour to Australia in 1932/33. As he read the accounts of the heated Test series in the morning newspapers in his Sussex home, Jack shook his head in disappointment and on his seaside strolls, his thoughts were firmly focused on the arts of proper bowling. Not once during the winter months, as he helped out coaching at the indoor school at Hove, did he suggest to his young charges that they should attempt to bowl fast leg-theory. Senior professional Glamorgan’s possible withdrawal from the Championship was a theme of the 1930s, giving great anxiety to the county’s paid staff, including Jack. This sympathetic cartoon, from 1933, has the guard saying to the youthful Glamorgan: ‘We can’t have young gentlemen like you in anything but first class.’