Lives in Cricket No 43 - John Jackson

30 Seasons of Plenty Altogether Jackson bowled 702.2 overs in first-class matches with 260 maidens, and he took one hundred wickets for 1,116 runs He took five or more wickets in an innings 12 times, and ten or more in a match on three occasions. Jackson appeared in 18 of the AEE matches against odds in 1858, of which seven were won, six lost and five left unfinished. A flavour of the itinerary can be got from the following list of his games. He played at Eastwell in Leicestershire on 10 June, Whitehaven in Cumbria on 14 June, Salford on 17 June and Chesterfield on 21 June. This amounted to a lot of travelling and he did a lot of bowling too: 232.1 overs in these matches, with 75 in an innings at Eastwell and 50 in an innings against Derbyshire. After some first-class matches, Jackson travelled on to Hull where he bowled another 83.2 overs in a match commencing on 28 June, and thence to Leeds on 8 July (73 overs there), Sleaford on 15 July (54 overs) and Newark on 29 July (71 overs). After some more first-class cricket Jackson next appeared for the AEE at Luton on 12 August where he bowled 56 overs, Liverpool on 19 August (43 overs), Bradford on 23 August (41 overs), Grantham on 26 August (61 overs); then down to Truro to play Cornwall on 31 August (66.2 overs). Still the bowling and travelling were not finished. On 2 September the AEE should have played at Plymouth against East Cornwall and South Devon but, perhaps to Jackson’s relief, rain ruined the match. On they went to Sheffield where Jackson bowled 99 overs against Hallam and Staveley on 6 September. Jackson’s next match was at Rochdale where he played as a given man against the AEE on 9 September, bowling 55 overs. He returned to the AEE at Newport, Monmouthshire on 13 September, and from there to their final match of the season in front of Sir William Worsley’s mansion at Hovingham, Yorkshire where Jackson bowled another 73.2 overs. The itinerary, and the fact that he was one of the main strike bowlers, offered little time for rest and recuperation other than anything bad weather might provide. There is no doubt at all that John Jackson was chronically overbowled and that this hastened his retirement from the first-class game. In 1858 he had bowled 1,178.3 overs and taken 214 wickets. Often the devastation he caused was on an epic scale. At Newport, against Monmouthshire, he took twenty-four wickets for 61 runs, and at Hovingham he took twenty for 27, including an incredible nine wickets for 6 runs in 31.2 overs in the local team’s second innings. At Truro, against Cornwall, he took sixteen for 30 and eight for 20; at Sleaford his figures were seven for 24 and eleven for 19. At Sheffield’s Hallam and Staveley he took twelve for 25 and six for 38; yet this match is chiefly remembered for the feat of another bowler, H.H.Stephenson. Stephenson took three wickets with consecutive balls after which a collection was taken and the money used to buy the player a new hat. The term ‘hat-trick’ derived from this feat. In other AEE matches Jackson took nine for 24 and seven for 38 against XVI of Oxford University, sixteen for 61 in the match against Newark, nine for 56 in 60 overs against Hull, nine for 43 in 50 overs against Derbyshire