Lives in Cricket No 43 - John Jackson

14 At length the coach arrived at an isolated cottage where the team hoped to be able to obtain some food and temporary shelter. Their cries and knocking produced no response for a time; then suddenly an old man in a nightcap appeared at an upper window clutching an old blunderbuss pointed straight at Parr’s head. This did nothing to soothe the nerves of the AEE captain, but the team managed to calm the old fellow down although the process took some time as he was as deaf as a post. Finally, cheese and beer were produced, paid for and swiftly consumed and the team prepared to continue their journey, only to find that one man was missing. This man was their star bowler, John Jackson, who was discovered emerging from the dairy looking like a man covered in shaving lather. The lather turned out to be clotted cream, a large bowl of which Jackson had discovered and got stuck into to such good effect that he had left very little behind for his team-mates to consume. Another hazard that the team encountered around the cricket fields of England was the poor and rough condition of many of them. Some grounds consisted of a pitch surrounded by long grass reaching to the fieldsmen’s shins and, once, in Truro, a deep fielder chasing after a ball put up a whole covey of partridges in the outfield. The poor standard of the pitches on which they had to play undoubtedly played a part in the low-scoring characteristic of many games. Another factor was the difficulty for the Eleven when faced with twenty fielders plus the bowler and wicketkeeper, which rendered run scoring very difficult. Hits mostly had to be ‘run out’ and only hits out of the ground were counted as six. A batsman playing a long innings covered a lot of ground running up and down the pitch to score his and his partner’s runs. The All-England Eleven