Lives in Cricket No 43 - John Jackson

67 Still at the Top contributed the most to the second innings Cambridge score of 113. Nottinghamshire’s totals were 59 and 158. On 11, 12 July an England XI played XIII of Kent at Lord’s winning by 219 runs. Tarrant took 12 Kent wickets. Jackson did not bowl but coming in late in the England second innings he clubbed his way to 68* to give his side a substantial lead., At Old Trafford on 11, 12 and 13 August North beat South, a team which included eight Surrey players. The South made 158 and 154 and the North 296 and 17 for one. Jackson took five for 26 off 25 overs in the match. Jackson’s final first-class match of the season was at The Severalls (Mr Richard Cotton’s ground), Newmarket on 6, 7 and 8 October where a Combined Kent and Nottinghamshire team played a Combined Cambridgeshire and Yorkshire team. The latter won easily scoring 145 and dismissing the Kent/Notts side for 84 and 57. Jackson bowled six overs taking 0 for 14. In all first-class matches in 1864 Jackson had bowled 299 overs, 126 maidens and taken 22 wickets for 377 runs. He was not as dominant as in previous years and it seemed as if the burden of work he had undertaken in previous seasons as well as the recent Australian tour may have its toll on him. His first appearance for the AEE came at the Trinity Ground in Halifax on 7th July against XXII of Halifax and District. Parr, injured in the Nottinghamshire v Yorkshire match, was missing as were other stalwarts like Tarrant, Hayward and Carpenter. The Halifax catchment area included two players from Huddersfield, five from Bradford, two from Todmorden and one each from Sheffield and London. The District appellation was still fairly flexible. It was a grand scene at the Trinity ground with refreshment booths, flags and banners and the presence of the 4th West York Rifle Volunteers to entertain the large crowd. An itinerant hawker was selling ‘All-England humbugs’ at 1d a packet. The Halifax paper described Jackson as bowling with ‘his terrible destructive swifts that appear to fly as if shot out of a mortar’. He took three wickets in the match and held three catches. A week later - the AEE played XXII of Ashton-under-Lyne and were well beaten by 139 runs. Jackson took five for 54 in the match. The AEE batting collapsed twice with only Joseph Rowbotham with 48 in the first innings and George Tarrant with 38 in the second innings showing much resistance. The last six batsmen in the first innings all failed to score. Jackson’s next game for the AEE was at Harrogate on 1, 2 and 3 August where he top-scored in both innings with 46 and 38 by means of lusty hitting. He took only two wickets as the Harrogate XXII inflicted a third consecutive defeat on the AEE, winning by six wickets. They won their next match on 15 and 16 August though, beating the Sheffield Shrewsbury Club at Bramall Lane by an innings and 19 runs. Apart from three catches, Jackson contributed nothing. On 18, 19 and 20 August the AEE travelled to the beautiful town of