Lives in Cricket No 29 - AN Hornby

67 in his first Test against England at Melbourne in 1877, taking four wickets. He ended his career with 94 Test wickets at 18.41 and a total of 853 in first-class cricket at 14.95. Spofforth took Hornby’s wicket on no fewer than 12 occasions, bowling him ten times, having him leg before once and caught once. Obviously, Hornby was unable to fathom Spofforth’s pace and movement. Spofforth’s percentage of players bowled in his long and distinguished career was 53 per cent, while against Hornby it had grown to 83 per cent. Hornby’s own overall record was 34 per cent bowled in his 1,010 innings. In one match Hornby and Spofforth were team-mates, when on 19 June 1878 they and E.M.Grace turned out for C.I.Thornton’s XI against Maldon. Now perhaps better known as the home club of England captain and Essex batsman Alastair Cook, Maldon was then a strong club side that five years earlier had beaten an All-England Eleven. Maldon engaged two professionals, the temperamental wicket-keeper Edward Pooley and the wily slow round-arm bowler John Hughes, who was two weeks short of his 53 rd birthday. Pooley and Hughes combined to have Hornby stumped for a duck, but Maldon could not repeat their success against All-England, and lost by an innings and 30 runs. In Maldon’s second innings Hornby took five for 12, including the collector’s item of ‘W.Sewell c. Spofforth b. Hornby 1’. The Demon with 27 and The Boss with 43 then entertained the crowd in an exhibition second innings after the match had finished. It gives one plenty of food for thought about any conversations between the two during the course of the game.  Voyage of discovery 2