Lives in Cricket No 43 - John Jackson

48 ten wickets. On 26, 27 and 28 August, the Nottinghamshire First Eleven played a match against the next XXII of Nottinghamshire for the benefit of George Butler, winning by five wickets, with Jackson taking fifteen for 78 in 77 overs in the match. On 24, 25 and 26 June at Lord’s, Eleven Players of England played a match against XVI Undergraduates of Oxford and Cambridge, winning by ten wickets. Jackson took four for 64 in 27 overs. He played one match as a given man, turning out for XXII of Bishop Auckland and helping them to an eight wicket win over Cambridgeshire, dismissing five batsmen in each innings for 36 and 33 respectively in a total of 52.1 overs. On 20 October 1861 an English team set out on the inaugural tour of Australia. Each man was offered the sum of £150 plus expenses to go on tour, but a number of the best professionals including John Jackson could not agree terms with the promoters, Messrs Spiers and Pond. One of the main sticking points was the preponderance of Surrey players in the team which was to be captained by Surrey’s Heathfield Stephenson. The Northern professionals expressed a preference for the captain of the All-England Eleven, George Parr, to be captain but, as the Surrey Secretary, C.W.Alcock, was making most of the arrangements, this was not likely to be agreed and, as a result, Jackson, Parr and several other players missed an historic opportunity. John Jackson took part in 14 first-class matches in 1862. He batted 20 times, being not out in six innings, and he scored 362 runs at 24.13 with 15 innings in 14 matches. His batting was improving as his effectiveness as a bowler declined slightly. There were no five wicket hauls this summer, and he bowled 502.1 overs to take 48 wickets at an average of 15.62. The first Players v Gentlemen match, played at the Kennington Oval on 26, 27 and 28 June, ended in the first drawn match between them since 1839, with the Players needing 33 to win with two wickets in hand when stumps were drawn. Recent heavy rain had meant a dead pitch, and bowlers of Jackson’s pace could not get the ball to rise more than half-stump high which made life easy for the batsmen. Jackson started well, taking two early wickets in the Gentlemen’s first innings, beating E.B.Rowley and H.M.Marshall for pace and bowling them for 6 and 0 respectively. As the wicket eased John Walker hit up 98 and F.P.Miller made 51 with the total reaching 276, Jackson finishing with two for 40 in 23 overs. Tom Hayward scored 77 and Jackson a hard-hit 35 as the Players finished with 244. The Gentlemen scored 211 (C.G.Lyttleton 57) in their second innings which left the Players needing 244 to win. Steady batting took them to 211 for eight, but time called a halt to what would clearly have been an exciting finish. For the Lord’s match which began on 14 July, selection of the teams was limited to those under 30 years of age. The idea was to try to even the balance between the teams as the Gentlemen had not beaten the Players since 1853, and it was felt that one of the reasons was that their players, being amateurs, abandoned the game for a more profitable career earlier than the professionals did. On this occasion the change made no difference At the Height of His Powers