Lives in Cricket No 43 - John Jackson

31 Seasons of Plenty and nine for 63 in 56 overs against E.W. Vyse’s team. It makes me weary just writing these figures down! There were some unusual features in other AEE matches. At Eastwell, for example, the match was abandoned as a draw when a violent storm of wind and rain blew some of the tents over. Playing for the Manchester Broughton Club, one of the Club’s given men, W.Swain, bowled 27 overs and conceded only 6 runs in the first innings of the AEE. The match at Hull was drawn with the Hull XXII only 4 runs short of victory, the scores being AEE 94 and 195; Hull 209 and 77 for five. In the drawn match at Leeds, Haygarth commented on the very fine analysis of John Jackson whose figures were 42 overs in the first innings and 31 in the second, taking, in all, twelve wickets for 45 runs At Grantham the local paper considered the match to be of sufficient importance as to merit an advertisement on the front page. In its report of the game the paper mentions shoddy fielding by the local men which gave away runs by aiming at the stumps rather than the wicketkeeper’s gloves. The Liverpool Daily Post report of the match at Liverpool describes Jackson as ‘the finest and best fast bowler England can boast of’. At Truro Jackson took six wickets in 16 balls against batsmen unused to such terrifying bowling. The West Briton writes of batsmen wincing in pain after being hit by a Jackson delivery. At Newport a charge of 1/- admission was made and a grandstand and numerous tents were erected for spectators. At the conclusion of the match a dinner was held in honour of the AEE at the Westgate Hotel. Jackson appeared in three other games as well. One was played for an England XI against Oxford University in a match which Jackson used to add fourteen wickets for 41 to his growing collection of scalps. He bowled 76.2.overs in this game. He played for a team of Old Cambridge Men against Cambridge University, taking seven wickets in this match, and he also appeared for an England XI against XVIII Veterans and took nine for 31. In a fantastic feat of endurance he had bowled more than 2040 overs in 1858 and taken 355 wickets. He was not a slow bowler and the sheer effort involved in bowling so many overs must have been tremendous. John Jackson took part in ten first-class matches during the 1859 season, a season that was to culminate in the first ever English tour abroad. The two matches between Gentlemen and Players both finished in easy victories for the professionals who won by an innings and 25 runs at the Kennington Oval, and by 169 runs at Lord’s. Jackson took five for 45 and four for 31 in the Oval match, and four for 41 and four for 28 in two impressive displays of fast bowling at Lord’s, where he also made a hard- hitting 41 in the Players’ first innings. In the two matches between the great professional elevens, the AEE and the UAEE, he took fourteen for 61 in the match at Lord’s on 6 and 7 June, a match which raised £100 for the benefit of the Cricketers’ Fund. Eight of his first innings’ victims were bowled. The United Eleven won, making 82 and 70 against AEE scores of 63 and 52. You might think this indicated