Lives in Cricket No 23 - Brief Candles

76 scored nought at No.8 but he had entered the record-books by producing a return of 23-2-80-8 in Scotland’s innings after opening the bowling. More remarkable still, of his eight wickets three were bowled, two were caught, and one each was lbw, stumped, and hit-wicket, and so in this one innings he had recorded all five of the types of dismissal available to a bowler – a unique feat for anyone playing in his only first-class match. 119 Unfortunately, newspaper reports in Ireland, Scotland and England tell us almost nothing about the circumstances of any of Gregory’s wickets. As was the way in those days, the principal match reports concentrate on the performances of the batsmen, and say little of the bowlers, beyond the Irish Independent ’s unhelpful ‘Gregory carried off the bowling honours, getting eight wickets for 80 runs.’ The third and final day of the game was seriously exciting. Batting a second time, Scotland were bowled out for 83. Harrington took five for 15, another late selection justifying his place, and Gregory 4-1-12-1, coming on surprisingly late as second change, which left Ireland needing 133 to win. From a healthy 93 for four they collapsed to 93 for seven, 99 for eight and 110 for nine. The last pair took them to within four runs of victory before No.11 Paddy Murphy [sic] was bowled, to leave Scotland the winners by three runs. Amidst the mayhem in the 90s Gregory, again at No.8, had been bowled trying a pull shot, to complete a pair, to complete his first-class career, and, so far as I have been able to trace, to complete his competitive cricket career altogether. So far, then, the facts in the third bullet-point are correct; which leaves only the question of his bowling style. The principal cricket sources agree that he was a leg-spinner; this is supported by the report, quoted above, of his trial match at Oxford. CricketArchive and ESPNcricinfo also credit him with a googly. Other sources refer to him as ‘a slow-break bowler’ or a bowler of ‘medium-paced leg-breaks and cutters’. So far, so reasonably consistent. But just to confuse things, The Scotsman ’s report of one of his wickets at Rathmines refers to him bowling one of the Scottish batsmen by ‘breaking from the off’; though this could have been a googly, or perhaps the batsman was left-handed. 120 Much greater confusion comes when the usually- reliable DIB goes out on its own by describing him as ‘an accomplished fast bowler’. So perhaps it’s not quite so straightforward after all. Again, we can only go on the balance of the evidence. I am satisfied that this supports the idea that Gregory was a leg-spinner, very likely with a googly; and probably not the slowest leg-spinner the cricket world has ever seen, either. But as the above evidence has suggested, this is a conclusion than needs to be taken with some caution. 119 W.Brown (Tasmania 1857/58) and J.L.Bevan (South Australia 1877/78) each recorded all five forms of dismissal in their only first-class match, but neither did so in the course of a single innings. 120 The principal reference sources do not identify which way round the batsman in question, W.H.Thorburn, batted. In the Wickets